[LINK] Government gives thumbs down to PDF format

[Ivan Trundle]

On 06/12/2010, at 11:23 AM, Marghanita da Cruz wrote:

> Ivan Trundle wrote:
>> There are difficulties in knowing end-user expectations in the electronic world. At least with print, expectations are generally uniform.
> 
> I don't know how you can make this statement when we are
> upto version 5 of HTML, which preserves backward compatibility
> to version 3, which was around in 1997.

Not the technical stuff, Marghanita - but the actual USER expectations (i.e. not the limitations or capabilities of the supplementary hardware that they must deploy to access a creation).

Authors, editors, publishers all consider how to assemble and present the content, which ultimately shapes how an end-user can and might use it. 

In the print world, the output is purposed (primarily) with one goal in mind. An object which is readily identified as a record of the action of creation. And one which users handle the same way, and for a long time to come.

In the digital world, it can be difficult to determine what goals need to be reached. How do users want to read or browse the document? How much of it? Do they want to re-purpose it? Do they want to print it? Project it? Archive it? Connect it to other resources? Use it in some other way in the future that we have yet to invent?

Warmly

iT