Online or PDF?

[geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA]

 Jane Bergen wondered about whether to put the docs into
 help or PDF format for <<a mega-reference for our scripting
 language>>.

 My first thought is "why not both"? Should be possible to
 meet the needs of the "I want a printed copy" set and the
 "I just wnat to look it up fast" set. With suitable
 software or macros, you should be able to accomplish this
 in Word or Frame without doubling your workload.

 However, an additional thought occurs to me based on your
 statement that <<Mostly, the users will want to find one
 function, or perhaps occasionally they will want to browse
 through the functions in one category.>> I assume you have
 good audience analysis info to back this up? (Just
 checking!) This raises a red flag for me: if I were in that
 situation, I'd want to copy and paste the info. directly
 into a script I was working on. This suggests strongly that
 PDF alone may not work at all in this context, depending on
 how you protect the file (e.g., read only).

 --Geoff Hart     @8^{)}     geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
 Disclaimer: Speaking for myself, not FERIC.

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