[DOC-SIG] Library reference SGML plan / size of supplied documentation

[Richard Folwell]

On Wednesday, November 19, 1997 4:36 AM, Guido van Rossum 
[SMTP:guido@CNRI.Reston.Va.US] wrote:
> > From: Bill Janssen <janssen@parc.xerox.com>
> > Yes, I'd rather have PDF instead of Postscript:  it has a good model of
> > page-formatted documents, as Postscript does; it supports links, which
>
> While I agree that PDF has advantages over Postscript, what drives me
> crazy is people putting up documents on the web in PDF format. for
> <snip>
> Please use PDF for printable files -- not for on line documents!

I agree with this completely.  PDF is atrocious for online viewing, for a 
number of reasons [1].  Overall I prefer Postscript, but PDF has the big 
practical advantage that we can distribute a viewer with it, whereas many 
people are not in a position to view/print Postscript [2].  For online reading 
we install HTML, and this seems to be the best for the moment [3].

Richard Folwell

RedBox Technologies, The Media Router Company, http://www.redbox.net
Email: richardf@redbox.net
Voice: +44 181 585 8565             Fax: +44 181 585 8665

[1] Page breaks, as Guido said.  Generally poor quality of displayed type is 
harder to read than native fonts used for HTML.  Poor use of available display 
space.  Awkward re-sizing controls.  No control over the general display and 
layout by the viewer (though an increasing amount of published HTML breaks this 
important quality of good HTML).  Line breaking done at distill time, not 
display time.

[2] Yes, I know about GhostScript, but it is not as simple to use, nor as 
polished as the Acrobat viewer.

[3] I also like WinHelp, but understand that a few people use systems that 
cannot read it ;-)



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