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As concerns Adobe Acrobat, I hear a lot of professionals
talking about how great it is. I have never used it, so I
can't be critical, but I have heard that it creates huge and
unwieldy files. Is this not true?
I have used all of the versions of Toolbook, plus Director
and Media Forge and a couple of others that don't come to
mind at the moment, and I know that these produce huge and
unwieldy files--although I can make the Toolbook files
"wieldy" if I am prepared to work at them a bit. It is also
true that these don't export to Macs well--at least Toolbook
doesn't. I am working on a project for ID2 Research, here
at Utah State U. The software they have developed is
probably the easiest I have ever seen for producing
hypermedia, but I don't think it does Mac--yet.
I would think, that any decisions concerning creating a
CD-ROM title would be driven by audience needs (Do they even
use Macs?) and the extent to which the title uses multiple
media. Structure within multimedia also becomes an
important factor. Is the document going to be simple
hypertext with a few hotwords and graphics, or will sound,
animation, and/or video be valuable? What about VR? In
this environment the reader can tour a facility or even an
idea. Finally, file size can be important. I have found
600MB to be pretty small, sometimes. A lean, mean, compiling
machine is sometimes critical.
As to suggestions, I can make none. I don't really know the
need, yet, so I can't suggest how to fill it.
For very flexible, powerful hypermedia applications, I use
Toolbook or Director. For simpler applications, I'm likely
to adapt RoboHELP. As for Acrobat? I'm off to the store to
get me a copy. I love Adobe products to death, an' I gotta'
see what it can do.
Ending this as I end all my more opinionated stuff. . .
Cogito ergo falsus sum--I think, therefor I'm wrong.
Dave Hailey
hangin' out on the net when I should be writing something
(wait a moment, I AM writing something).
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