[LINK] Government gives thumbs down to PDF format

Webb, KerryA KerryA.Webb at act.gov.au
Mon Dec 13 10:46:33 AEDT 2010


Tom wrote:
>
> Darrell Burkey wrote:
> > On Tue, 2010-12-07 at 10:01, Tom Worthington wrote:
> >
> >> ...  last thing the user wants is a whole report downloaded in PDF.
> >
> > Not this user. I want to see the document in it's proper layout. There's
> > more to communicating in the printed medium then just the words Tom. I
> > can't stand HTML as the line spacing, kerning, line breaks, fonts etc
> > are all over the place. ...
>
> Yes, PDF is very good for the printed medium, but I want electronic
> documents, not printed ones. My preference would be to use default line
> spacing, kerning, line breaks and fonts in the creation of routine
> government reports, so they will display on a wide range of devices.
>
> There are some newer features in CSS which allow it to get closer to a
> high quality typeset result, assuming that you have a browser which can
> render it. But aiming to produce a high quality facsimile of a printed
> document is missing the point.
>
> > Give me pdf any day for a document. I think it's one of the most
> > brilliant advancements in online publishing ever! ...
>
> If you want just a printed document, then PDF is fine. But I spend a lot
> of my time trying to extract useful information from PDF. This involves
> removing the inappropriate formatting which is in the PDF and then
> manually putting in the formatting which was lost in the conversion to
> PDF (or was not there in the first place, because it was done by a
> graphic designer, rather someone competent in the creation of electronic
> documents).
>

I refer you to Webb's First Law of Web Publishing:

        I'm not most people.

Kerry

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
This email, and any attachments, may be confidential and also privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender and delete all copies of this transmission along with any attachments immediately. You should not copy or use it for any purpose, nor disclose its contents to any other person.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------




More information about the Link mailing list