TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Anne Parker reports: <<Our company distributes documentation via PDF and
hard copy, but more towards PDFs. We start page numbering with the first
page of chapter 1, which is page 5 or higher of the resulting PDF (after
the cover, front matter and TOC), so the page references in the text do not
match the PDF page numbers.>>
Others have already proposed ways around this problem, so I'll just play
devil's advocate here:
If the document uses page numbers, this suggests that it's designed to be
printed, since page numbers aren't as useful as hyperlinks for an online
document. For a printed document, the problem you report should never arise
because the page references will be correct. Conversely, if the document is
designed for online use, you should try to replace page numbers with
hyperlinks wherever possible; after all, a major goal of putting the
document online is to make it easy to move between sections. In that case,
readers probably won't pay much attention to the page numbers since they're
more likely to follow links.
Creating a document formatted for printing and expecting people to use it
online always creates problems, not the least of which is the fact that
documents that print on 8.5x11 or other large paper can't be read onscreen
without lots of scrolling. Trying to create a single document that works
equally well online and in print is difficult, but possible: the solution
starts with choosing a page size that displays equally well onscreen and on
paper. Turning page numbers into hyperlinks is a reasonable compromise, but
it's still a compromise: if you have the time and resources to design
documents optimized for their intended use, that's always a better solution.
--Geoff Hart, geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada
"User's advocate" online monthly at
www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/usersadvocate.html
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a
personality, and an obnoxious one at that."--Kim Roper
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Check out RoboDemo for tutorials! It makes creating full-motion software
demonstrations and other onscreen support materials easy and intuitive.
Need RoboHelp? Save $100 on RoboHelp Office in May with our mail-in rebate.
Go to http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l
Your monthly sponsorship message here reaches more than
5000 technical writers, providing 2,500,000+ monthly impressions.
Contact Eric (ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com) for details and availability.
---
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.
