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Re: Adobe PDF as Web solution (was: PageMaker to HTML)
Subject:Re: Adobe PDF as Web solution (was: PageMaker to HTML) From:Kathryn Whitver <kathrynw -at- MICROWARE -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 1 Aug 1996 21:05:06 GMT
>>I would love to use PDF as a delivery method for the web, but only about
>>20 percent of my customers use Macs and only about half of those have
>>systems powerful enough to retrieve PDF files over the web. That leave
>>about 90 percent of my customers unserved by this approach.
>>
>>My $ 0.02. Joe
I'm not sure I understand the problem with using PDF as a Web
solution. PDF files are platform independant. We publish our
technical library in the form of a single set of PDF files. Our
customers and internal users have the Acrobat reader for their
platform (Mac, PC, or Unix) and all can access the same set
of PDF documents.
Having a system powerful enough to retrieve a PDF file from
the web is another problem. But it's a problem no matter which
file type you choose. There's nothing inherent in a PDF file
that requires a powerful system to retrieve. Download time
may be dog slow for some lower-end users, but that would
be a problem for all files. Acrobat 3.0 beta includes an optimizing
feature for files that will be served over the web. The additional
file compression (in our experience) brings the PDF files to
close-to-HTML size.
If PDF provides the features you need, it may be worth your
time to take a closer look.
Kathryn
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