RE: Convert Paper Document to Web Format

[Dan Emory <danemory -at- primenet -dot- com>]

At 07:21 AM 5/4/00 -0700, Bill Swallow wrote:
>Yup, same here. But I throw HTML into the output as
>well. Every medium has it's purpose. Print output is
>great for desk-side reference and for throwing at the
>wall/monitor/people. PDF is great for distributing
>print-ready documents online. Their hypertext
>capabilities are handy too... you can build a great
>online doc set with PDF. But HTML has its perks too.
>Sure, chances are that your output won't be as pretty,
>but info's the main concern. An HTML library that's
>accessible from the Web is VERY handy... especially
>for those on the road who need up-to-the-minute
>documentation.
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I say info may be the main concern, but it's not of much use if it's
provided in a form that hinders comprehension and retention.

**Experimental results have established that reading information from a
monitor reduces comprehension and retention:

It is well established that, when reading information from a monitor, both
comprehension and retention are reduced (conservatively) by 30% over reading
the same information in printed form.

A further secondary reduction in comprehension (figures range from 5% to a
whopping 40% depending on the study) occurs when the text is formatted in
the flush-left, single-space-between-paragraphs (with generic fonts and font
sizes) that is almost unavoidable in HTML documents. The main reason seems
to be that, when this shovelware-type formatting is used, readers can?t keep
their place in the text, and end up skipping or re-reading lines, which
breaks their concentration and irritates them. The studies also show that
comprehension worsens with multi-screen documents, which confuse readers
even more.

The secondary comprehension reduction, and a some portion of the primary
reduction, disappear when the text is formatted according to the
conventional rules of typography for printed material in whatever language
and culture is involved. In other words, people understand more when the
screen looks like a well-designed printed book.

Certainly, the use of a sidehead column containing thesis sentences and
other cues, with ordinary text in the normal text column, has been shown
over and over again to provide optimum readability. In this design, headings
span both the sidehead and normal text column and the sidehead serves as a
scannning column, allowing readers to rapidly locate the particular
information they are seeking. Running header/footers provide additional
cues. This kind of page design is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve
in anything but PDF.

**Our own real-world experience supports those experimental results:

Often, when we browse through long HTML documents, we just skim?read a
couple of lines and scroll down, read a few more lines, and so on. We?re not
really ?getting? the information this way, and we know it. Consequently, we
adopt the print-before-reading habit?-downloading the ones we need,
formatting the text in our word processors, and printing them out. But a
tremendous amount of time is wasted converting the information to a
readable, printable form.

**The ?paperless office? only looks good on paper:

High-tech gurus have been predicting the imminent arrival of the ?paperless
office? for going on ten years now. But no one in the trenches is talking
about it, because they?re too busy printing out almost everything of value
they find on-line. Perhaps the best indication of how computer and internet
use fuels demand for paper comes from the high-tech industry itself, which
has identified printing as one of its most promising new market
opportunities. It?s also apparent that the demand for paper-by-the ream
rises exponentially with increased computer use. Much to the dismay of
environmentalists, the internet has failed to deliver on the paperless
office prediction, and the only plausible explanation is that people still
find it difficult to do any serious reading on-line, and often find it more
convenient to do most heavy reading off-line.

**If on-line help is so great, why are there so many top-selling printed
books on popular software products?

For example, Microsoft?s decision not to document its products in print has
created a bonanza for technical book publishing houses. On-line help, by
itself, is never enough.

**PDF is one of the best ways to deliver on-line documents:

The discussion above offers strong arguments for using PDF rather than HTML
to deliver on-line documents. No other on-line delivery method can fully
replicate the typography and multi-column page layouts of well-constructed
printed books. Also, unlike most other browsers, Acrobat allows the reader
to adjust the magnification, and provides the capability to zoom in to a
high magnification on a selected point in a page. Well-designed PDF
documents can minimize comprehension and retention losses, and also can
eliminate all the hassle when users adopt the print-before-reading habit.
     ====================
     | Nullius in Verba |
     ====================
Dan Emory, Dan Emory & Associates
FrameMaker/FrameMaker+SGML Document Design & Database Publishing
Voice/Fax: 949-722-8971 E-Mail: danemory -at- primenet -dot- com
10044 Adams Ave. #208, Huntington Beach, CA 92646
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