RE: Online Formats (AND Why people don't like PDFs)

["Jessica N. Lange" <jlange -at- oee -dot- com>]

-----Sandra Charker wrote:
>We've had speculation about why users preferred HTML to PDF, 
>but Is there data? Jessica - did you ask them? did they tell you?

Our users preferred the HTML versions over the PDF versions
for many of the reasons Jean Weber mentioned in her post. 
    Most of our users have very small, very bad monitors. They 
also didn't like having to zoom up & scroll around; and didn't 
like the download time (to load up acrobat reader). Also,
most of these users don't know much about using the Acrobat
interface & aren't interested in learning. They know & are 
comfortable with a web browser.
    Personally, I far prefer HTML because I can (usually) set my
preferred font and font size, which my bad eyes appreciate.
Yes you can zoom up in Acrobat, but as Sandra says, the text
often appears fuzzy to me. I hate reading PDFs online, and will
*print* them instead. 

-----Sandra Charker wrote:
>I think the most likely reason is that PDF is just too good for online: 
>screen resolutions still can't cope with those smooth curves. 

I don't think that's it, Sandra, simply because vector graphics 
created in CorelDraw, Freehand, & so on, look just wonderful, 
including the text created in those programs (also smooth curves).

My conclusions: PDF is terrific for a document that will be transferred/
downloaded on-line to be *printed*. For online "reading" (skimming)
of the same information, HTML is far better.

YMMV

Jessica

----------------------------------------------------
Jessica N. Lange mailto:jlange -at- oee -dot- com
Technical Communicator, Ohio Electronic Engravers, Inc.