Re: Hyperlinks in PDF -- should they be visible or not?

Subject: Re: Hyperlinks in PDF -- should they be visible or not?
From: voxwoman <voxwoman -at- gmail -dot- com>
To: Viv Crawford <viv_crawford -at- hotmail -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 08:08:34 -0500

In an electronic document, hyperlinks should be visible - and in companies
that cared about accessability that I used to work for, there had to be 2
degrees of difference (i.e. color plus underline) between non-hyperlinked
text and hyperlinked text. Reading an electronic document is not supposed to
be a game where the reader has to mouse over the entire page to find hot
links.

If you are really concerned about the documents looking "right" when
printed, the company should supply hardcopy. Other than that, you have no
control over what the docs are going to look like, since you're not printing
them. You can always recommend that when they print the PDF the user can
select "Print colors as black" - but there is no guarantee that they will do
this.

-Wendy

On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 6:44 AM, Viv Crawford <viv_crawford -at- hotmail -dot- com>wrote:

>
> Hello
>
> For each product release we create an online help and a bunch of pdf
> manuals. These are always referred to as print manuals, but in fact are
> distributed electronically.
>
>
>
> At the minute, all the hyperlinks and cross references in them are in plain
> black text so as to look 'right' if printed. The reader's only clue to the
> presence of a hyperlink would be the pdf 'hand' icon if they happened to
> hover (and the context of course).
>
>
>
> I'm inclined to think that it's more useful to have a visible hyperlink as
> users are more likely to read the manuals on screen -- and if they are
> reading a hard-copy version, they've printed it themselves, so in theory
> shouldn't mind that there are visible hyperlinks.
>
>
>
> Should I change them to be visible? How do others handle this?
>
> TIA
>
> Viv
>
>
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Are you looking for one documentation tool that does it all? Author,
build, test, and publish your Help files with just one easy-to-use tool.
Try the latest Doc-To-Help 2009 v3 risk-free for 30-days at:
http://www.doctohelp.com/

Explore CAREER options and paths related to Technical Writing,
learn to create SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS documents, and
get tips on FUNCTIONAL SPECIFICATION best practices. Free at:
http://www.ModernAnalyst.com

---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-

To unsubscribe send a blank email to
techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/archive%40web.techwr-l.com


To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com

Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/ for more resources and info.

Please move off-topic discussions to the Chat list, at:
http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/listinfo/techwr-l-chat


Follow-Ups:

References:
Hyperlinks in PDF -- should they be visible or not?: From: Viv Crawford

Previous by Author: Re: What do you do when you don't have anyone with the time to reviewand edit your docs
Next by Author: Re: Mixing metaphors?
Previous by Thread: RE: Hyperlinks in PDF -- should they be visible or not?
Next by Thread: RE: Hyperlinks in PDF -- should they be visible or not?


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads