[LINK] Government gives thumbs down to PDF format

[Tom Worthington]

Ben McGinnes wrote:
> On 1/12/10 9:22 PM, Kim Holburn wrote:
>>> ... workaround methods to access inaccessible PDF files...
> 
> There is, of course, a real irony here in that the report is
> published as a PDF.  At least it is also available as HTML too, but
> that's only on the website, there isn't a non-PDF version available
> for download. ...
> http://www.finance.gov.au/publications/pdf-accessibility-study/index.html

Yes, it might be useful for agencies to look at using the ePub e-book
format, in preference to (or addition to) PDF. That provides a way to
download a whole report in one file. ePub is based on HTML and so it 
should take little extra work to produce.

Whatever format is used, I suggest agencies offer the executive summary
of each report prominently before the full download option. Most people 
will click on the first plausible looking link on a web page. If that is 
a link to the full document, the download will have started before they 
realise there was a better option further down the page.

In the case of this PDF study, the Finance Department offer the Main 
Report (2.1 MB) and a Supplementary Report (2.4 MB), before the 
executive summary (207 kbytes). If the reader selects either of the PDF 
documents before reading further, they will have ten times as much 
document as they are likely to want. I suggest the Department move the 
PDF versions to the bottom of the page, just above the copyright notice.

Speaking of copyright, the Department should be commended for using a 
Creative Commons licence for the reports.

ps: I will be covering this in the course "Electronic Data Management" 
(COMP7420), starting at ANU February 2011: 
<http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7420/>.


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, School of Computer Science, The
Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/
Visiting Scientist, CSIRO ICT Centre: http://bit.ly/csiro_ict_canberra