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RE: Hyperlinks in PDF -- should they be visible or not?
Subject:RE: Hyperlinks in PDF -- should they be visible or not? From:"Jessica Weissman" <Jessica -dot- Weissman -at- hillcrestlabs -dot- com> To:"Combs, Richard" <richard -dot- combs -at- Polycom -dot- com>, "David Neeley" <dbneeley -at- gmail -dot- com>, <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:58:07 -0500
Nope, including the index does not look wrong. I acquiesced to the
product manager on this one, saving my energy for more important fights
about level of coverage on our user-oriented products.
- Jessica
-----Original Message-----
From: Combs, Richard [mailto:richard -dot- combs -at- Polycom -dot- com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 20, 2010 10:37 AM
To: Jessica Weissman; David Neeley; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: Hyperlinks in PDF -- should they be visible or not?
Jessica Weissman wrote:
> Simple solution - I had the descriptions backward. The printed one
has the
> hyperlinks hidden and the index. The screen one has visible
hyperlinks and
> the side thumbnails.
>
> As you say, indexes serve a different function than hyperlinks. The
index
> works fine for paper, where hyperlinks do not work.
I'm 100% with David on this, for all the reasons he mentioned. You're
giving people a PDF, not a printed book; name it what you want, some of
them will open the PDF. The others will print it on their office printer
and be totally unsurprised and unbothered to see links, just like they
see in countless other things they print from their computer.
And why would you omit the index from the "official" online-viewing
version? Believe it or not, there are still people who find a
well-crafted index, which contains terms not found in the text, more
useful than search. Don't tell me including the index "looks wrong." ;-)
Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
------
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-777-0436
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