Comments on: Acrobat 8’s Help: A Review http://www.acrobatusers.com/blogs/duffjohnson/2007/01/12/acrobat-8s-help-a-review/ PDF and Acrobat discussion for users, CIOs and developers Sat, 6 Sep 2008 17:22:48 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.3 by: Duff Johnson’s PDF Perspective » Blog Archive » Using PDF for Help files http://www.acrobatusers.com/blogs/duffjohnson/2007/01/12/acrobat-8s-help-a-review/#comment-303 Fri, 09 Feb 2007 19:01:55 +0000 http://www.acrobatusers.com/blogs/duffjohnson/2007/01/12/acrobat-8s-help-a-review/#comment-303 [...] This post was inspired by new AcrobatUsers.com member GloriaMc, who wrote a very nice comment on an earlier post regarding the Acrobat Help file. [...] […] This post was inspired by new AcrobatUsers.com member GloriaMc, who wrote a very nice comment on an earlier post regarding the Acrobat Help file. […]

]]> by: duffjohnson http://www.acrobatusers.com/blogs/duffjohnson/2007/01/12/acrobat-8s-help-a-review/#comment-301 Thu, 08 Feb 2007 03:41:01 +0000 http://www.acrobatusers.com/blogs/duffjohnson/2007/01/12/acrobat-8s-help-a-review/#comment-301 GloriaMC, Thanks very much for your Comment! Much appreciated. I'm going to generate a full-fledged (rather than strictly off-the-cuff) answer to your very good question, and I'll post it as a new Blog post in a few days - so check back soon! So thanks for asking! GloriaMC,

Thanks very much for your Comment! Much appreciated.

I’m going to generate a full-fledged (rather than strictly off-the-cuff) answer to your very good question, and I’ll post it as a new Blog post in a few days - so check back soon!

So thanks for asking!

]]> by: GloriaMc http://www.acrobatusers.com/blogs/duffjohnson/2007/01/12/acrobat-8s-help-a-review/#comment-300 Thu, 08 Feb 2007 00:40:13 +0000 http://www.acrobatusers.com/blogs/duffjohnson/2007/01/12/acrobat-8s-help-a-review/#comment-300 Duff, Just joined Acro Users so that I could reply to your evaluation of the Acrobat Help. I know it is heresy in the world of exciting online Help options to say this, but we have decided to pitch our HTML help for Web-based app's and go to PDFs. We will be using destinations for context-sensitive links. (Thank goodness they work again in Acro. 8!) I've been considering how we can format and structure the documents to make them more Help-like and helpful for users (while still being documents), and your evaluation has actually given me several good ideas. The problem that caused us to go in this direction was/is (what else?) time and resource constraints that constantly pressure us. By eliminating the Help-development cycle, we have more time to focus on content, which is the most important thing, after all. And I don't care if you are using Frame/WebWorks, Word/RoboHelp, or some other combination of tools, Help development is time consuming and high risk in terms of generation problems and (in the case of Word, which is what we're required to use), keeping content the same between doc and Help source. Even if we could set up WebWorks with Word and use their version of "conditional" text for single sourcing, it's a large amount of work, and we don't have the time or budget that allows us to do that. Never mind hidden difficulties that might lie with that solution. (Do I sound defensive about our solution?) We are in a conservative industry, and several of our biggest customers (and they are ) absolutely love PDFs, so we have that in our favor. Would be interested in your comments. I hope we can make it work and not look too-o-o clunky. Thx much. Duff,
Just joined Acro Users so that I could reply to your evaluation of the Acrobat Help. I know it is heresy in the world of exciting online Help options to say this, but we have decided to pitch our HTML help for Web-based app’s and go to PDFs. We will be using destinations for context-sensitive links. (Thank goodness they work again in Acro. 8!) I’ve been considering how we can format and structure the documents to make them more Help-like and helpful for users (while still being documents), and your evaluation has actually given me several good ideas.

The problem that caused us to go in this direction was/is (what else?) time and resource constraints that constantly pressure us. By eliminating the Help-development cycle, we have more time to focus on content, which is the most important thing, after all. And I don’t care if you are using Frame/WebWorks, Word/RoboHelp, or some other combination of tools, Help development is time consuming and high risk in terms of generation problems and (in the case of Word, which is what we’re required to use), keeping content the same between doc and Help source.

Even if we could set up WebWorks with Word and use their version of “conditional” text for single sourcing, it’s a large amount of work, and we don’t have the time or budget that allows us to do that. Never mind hidden difficulties that might lie with that solution. (Do I sound defensive about our solution?)

We are in a conservative industry, and several of our biggest customers (and they are ) absolutely love PDFs, so we have that in our favor.

Would be interested in your comments. I hope we can make it work and not look too-o-o clunky. Thx much.

]]>