RE: Is PDF or HTML as easy as 123 or Pi?

["Glenn Maxey" <glenn -dot- maxey -at- voyanttech -dot- com>]

Hi Mark

When I was young one summer in the early 70's, my family visited my
Uncle's ranch in Idaho close to Yellowstone. Friends of my relatives
were storing their snowmobiles there. My adult cousins took each of my
siblings and I for a ride on the back of one of them through the green
dusty fields filled with cow chips and horse apples.

So, if we could ride snowmobiles in summer, you can certainly deliver a
manual using standard HTML on CD. HTML isn't just for the web. This is
what I'm doing.

Part of the reason for the HTML output in my case is that off-the-shelf
tools create an HTML system that provides some order to our API
documentation. (It extracts code prototypes and specially flagged code
comments into this fancy system.) I export the how-to material from FM
into HTML using Mif2go, and then wrap all of these mini-HTML systems
into one.

If all I had was the how-to material, an HTML manual would only offer a
cross-browser, cross-platform solution. It would require a browser, but
not Acrobat. (Actually, even if they didn't have a browser, they could
still get information by using an editor on the HTML pages and reading
between the HTML tags.) External programs could easily hyperlink into my
HTML documentation set. It may not seem like much, but compared to the
proprietary days of Microsoft WinHelp and other less-than-general
cross-platform solutions, it is a step forward.

However, I wouldn't go as far as to say that having the HTML alone would
be sufficient. I still deliver PDFs because they make printing of page
ranges or entire manuals easier and more faithful to what I intended
(complete with headers, footers, title pages, document numbers, etc.)
The PDFs have other advantages like bookmarks and search abilities. I
hyperlink the HTML topics to their associated PDFs.

For what it's worth, the hot summer snowmobile ride was so jarring and
bumpy in that pockmarked, weedy cow pasture, it lasted all of three
minutes out and back... but provided bragging rights to my friends
then... and now. :)

Glenn Maxey
Voyant Technologies, Inc.
Tel. +1 303.223.5164
Fax. +1 303.223.5275
glenn -dot- maxey -at- voyanttech -dot- com


> -----Original Message-----
> From: mtipple -at- pathix -dot- com [mailto:mtipple -at- pathix -dot- com]
> Sent: Friday, June 22, 2001 8:11 AM
> To: TECHWR-L
> Subject: Is PDF or HTML as easy as 123 or Pi?
 
 
> Has any ever developed a manual using HTML (not as a web page 
> that customer could access, but as  something that could be burned
onto a 
> disk and sent directly to the client? Is there any advantage to this
format 
> (as, say, over PDF)? The idea has been suggested to me for a technical

> manual I'm developing, but when I think of HTML, I think of the 
> internet. 
> Would this be a practical option or would it be like riding a
snowmobile 
> in summer - it could be done, but why would you when you could use a
car.
> 
> Mark

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

*** Deva(tm) Tools for Dreamweaver and Deva(tm) Search ***
Build Contents, Indexes, and Search for Web Sites and Help Systems
Available now at http://www.devahelp.com or info -at- devahelp -dot- com

Sponsored by Cub Lea, specialist in low-cost outsourced development
and documentation. Overload and time-sensitive jobs at exceptional
rates. Unique free gifts for all visitors to http://www.cublea.com

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.