Re: HTML vs PDF

[Stuart Burnfield <slb -at- FS -dot- COM -dot- AU>]

Laurie, this subject has been covered exhaustively (and exhaustingly)
on the list before. It's one of those topics that tends to ignite the
passions.

It's a good question, but I suggest you check the recent archives
first ( http://www.documentation.com/ ), then come back to the list
with specific questions. Be aware that any information more than a
few months old may well be out-of-date.

Very briefly:

        If you have paper docs which you want to let users search and
        print online while preserving the existing formatting and
        layout, PDF is a good solution.

        If you want to provide context-sensitive specially-written-
        for-online-help docs, HTML is a good solution.

To put it another way, PDF is generally better for online *manuals*,
and HTML is generally better for online *help*.

In theory both formats can be viewed on virtually any platform, but
in practice it's more complicated than that.

Regards
---
Stuart Burnfield                ("Down, Arlen! Heel, David! STAY!")
Functional Software Pty Ltd
mailto:slb -at- fs -dot- com -dot- au

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