[LINK] Government gives thumbs down to PDF format

[Tom Worthington]

Roger Clarke wrote:
> At 9:42 +1100 9/12/10, Tom Worthington wrote:
> ...
>> 2. It is easy to produce PDF from web pages ...
> 
> The APF uses that approach, and we aren't all that happy with it.
> 
> A page like this:
> http://www.privacy.org.au/Papers/CCTV-1001.html
> presents rather clumsily, like this:
> http://www.privacy.org.au/Papers/CCTV-1001-Safari.pdf  ...

The PDF versions of the page are clear and readable, but not very pretty.

To improve the look of the printed version you can include CSS 
formatting commands which only apply when the document is printed. For 
example, you can omit the menu bar from the top of the page.

If you want a better rendering, there are numerous packages for 
converting HTML to typeset PDF, including free ones based on Tex. These 
will take care of orphan lines in paragraphs and justify text: 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PDF_software>.

But do your customers really want pretty printed documents, or is this 
just something for the vanity of the executives of the organisation?


-- 
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