[LINK] Government gives thumbs down to PDF format

[Tom Worthington]

Ivan Trundle wrote:

> ...  Tom alluded to 'in addition to', which is fine in theory, but
> not simple in practice. In an ideal world, every possible format
> would be generated, to service every possible end use. All that's
> needed is ample resources ...

No. I propose government agencies produce routine reports as ebooks. Web 
pages and PDF can be generated automatically from the ebooks. Fewer 
staff resources will be required.

The important points here are:

1. ebooks are just collections of web pages,
2. It is easy to produce PDF from web pages, but difficult to produce 
web pages from PDF.

The ebooks can be provided by a Content Management System as individual 
web pages for each chapter, as well as collected together as an ebook.

PDF can be generated automatically and printed to provide a paper edition.

Staff time will be saved by not having to first design a printed 
document and then rework it for the web. Instead the document will be 
designed for the web and just printed. The printed report will not look 
as good as something specially designed for printing. But will be
adequate for the few printed copies produced.


-- 
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