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Subject:Re: PDF vs. Hard Copy From:Mike Stockman <stockman -at- JAGUNET -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 2 Sep 1998 14:41:54 -0500
On 9/2/1998 11:15 AM, Thomas Quine (thomas -dot- quine -at- NCOMPASSLABS -dot- COM) wrote:
>I see PDF as a portable document format, which allows you to maintain
>visual integrity in a document intended to be printed. It is not
>well-suited to online help or online documentation.
In addition to the examples of online features in Barry's excellent
response, if you use dynamic cross-references in Word or FrameMaker, you
can include those in your PDF file as hypertext links. The user can click
any of these cross-references to travel the jump, but they still appear
normally in the printed version. When I have done this, I even set up the
cross-reference format to include the "hotlink blue" used by default in
most web browsers.
However, there was no time to usability test using the doc online because
the client was mainly concerned with the printed versions. This use of
the cross-references was a bonus feature I tossed in because it was easy
to do and wouldn't hurt the intended end-user experience. However, if
anybody has tested PDF files for online use, I'd love to hear the results.
----->Mike
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