Re: How do you take your docs, HTML or PDF?

>>>>> "Jan" == Jan Gelbrich <j_gelbrich_at_westfalen-blatt.de> writes:

 Jan> Hi.  afaiac, I definitely prefer HTML over PDF for all purposes
 Jan> - but others may disagree, I donīt know.  The reason is, PDFs
 Jan> consume many times more space than HTML of the same content.  I
 Jan> am making my own documentations in HTML/CSS to use it online;
 Jan> and if necessary, I can easily change it when detecting errors
 Jan> or addings and so on.  You do not need any special tools like
 Jan> Frontpage (I actually hate it because it generates too fat and
 Jan> unnecessary code), in an plane editor You can do most things by
 Jan> using just 10 tags.  It is easy. The only thing that I miss are
 Jan> mathematic tags like matrices.

 Jan> One thing is, that I prefer a 2 frame layout whit a slim menu on  Jan> the left and the contents pages on the right.

 Jan> PDFs is - to my ming - only good for printing, especially when
 Jan> you have graphics inside - that woud be <img src> in HTML, so
 Jan> one advantage of PDF maybe that is all is kept in one file.

 Jan> Some small comments inside...

 Jan> "John Russell" <netnews5_at_johnrussell.mailshell.com> schrieb im  Jan> Newsbeitrag news:tiqa5v4u4pro4766lo5h81u1vqgfufng6c_at_4ax.com...
>> Noons wrote:
>>
>> >The manuals are much easier >to consult, particularly if you
>> download the pdfs >and keep them on your desktop or notebook.
>>
>> I had a discussion the other day where it was asserted that HTML
>> was all-around better for certain types of documentation, such as
>> API reference doc. As an advocate of online documentation in
>> general, I like HTML for some things and PDF for others. I'm
>> curious how others feel on that subject.

 Jan> I would prefer HTML on all types of documentation.

>> In particular, if you frequently use PDF:
>>
>> - Do you view it online (as I interpret Nuno to suggest) or print
>> it out?

 Jan> Most of my PDFs I find when googling around to find answers for
 Jan> some problems.  I read them roughly when downloading, and when I
 Jan> find them important, I make a print.

>> - If you print it out, is there some limitation of having it on
>> the computer that makes it necessary to have a hardcopy?
>> (E.g. easier to jot notes, don't always have a computer handy,
>> limited screen size.)
>>
>> And if you frequently use HTML:
>>
>> - Do you favour certain types of information, such as API
>> reference, for looking up online?
>>
>> I remember hearing a while back that the cryptic PDF names might
>> be a problem. Someone using the doc CD can pick from a list of
>> books and open the PDF. (There's an HTML-format page and a
>> PDF-format page, both linking to all the PDF files.) Do people
>> often use just a couple of PDFs without having the complete doc
>> CD? I wonder if having some sort of file-renamer would be handy.

 Jan> Definitely it would be. Now I do it all by hands ...

Personally, I prefer HTML as long as it has well designed links. There is nothing worse than a huge html page without sufficient links. I prefer my documentation on-line as I find it easiest to search that way.

I've been a bit spoiled in that I've come from a unix background where we used a lot of Latex for document formatting and then processed that into different formats such as postscript, html, etc.

What would be really good is if we ever get to the point where documents are stored in a generic format and you request the display/print format you want (xml?)

Tim

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Tim Cross
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