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Hyperlinks in PDF -- should they be visible or not?
Subject:Hyperlinks in PDF -- should they be visible or not? From:Viv Crawford <viv_crawford -at- hotmail -dot- com> To:<techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Tue, 19 Jan 2010 11:44:54 +0000
Hello
For each product release we create an online help and a bunch of pdf manuals. These are always referred to as print manuals, but in fact are distributed electronically.
At the minute, all the hyperlinks and cross references in them are in plain black text so as to look 'right' if printed. The reader's only clue to the presence of a hyperlink would be the pdf 'hand' icon if they happened to hover (and the context of course).
I'm inclined to think that it's more useful to have a visible hyperlink as users are more likely to read the manuals on screen -- and if they are reading a hard-copy version, they've printed it themselves, so in theory shouldn't mind that there are visible hyperlinks.
Should I change them to be visible? How do others handle this?
TIA
Viv
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