Another PhD States: Why I Hate PDFs
Great article by Michael Hughes, PhD in Instructional Technology.
User books died; if they had value in that form, companies would still print them and users would buy them. Yet PDFs still hang around like pathetic home town sports fans after the team has moved to the West Coast.
Quintus in The Gladiator says “A people ought to know when they’ve been defeated.”
PDFs should get the wake-up call.
Of course the good doctor began his article stating it’s not every single PDF he hates:
Not all PDFs; that would be over the top. I just hate user manuals that are distributed as PDFs. From User Assistance: Why I Hate PDFs
Hat tip to Char James-Tanny’s Helpstuff blog where Char posts many well written tips on PDF user manuals:
If you’re going to distribute an online PDF as a user’s manual instead of one of the many appropriate online formats, then at least make it easy for your users.
Posted by Charles in Tech Writing, Technical Communication |
August 29th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Nothing is quiet like clicking on a link, only to figure out that it is a link to a PDF and waiting 15 minutes for reader to launch.
Also love how I open open about 5 PDFs a year, and each time I do I have to reboot my machine because I selected ‘update’ and waited the 30 minutes it takes to download the update.
Dave Mozealous’s latest musing..Flash on Non-PC Devices blog
August 29th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
[...] just thought I would mention an article I read about PDFs from Charles’ website entitled, Another PhD States: Why I Hate PDFs. Included are some links to a few interesting reads about [...]
August 30th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
It’s so frustrating that the PDFs out there either don’t work properly… or you can only use them and save the content in forms if you have the FULL Adobe Acrobat version.
When I’ve had to print out and correct forms like the HUD 1003 (for home purchasing) multiple times, it makes me realize that having the Acrobat full version is the only thing that saves me from redoing it again and again.
How frustrating is that?!? Not what the market needs.
And as Dave states, chugging through a PDF download puts this sinking feeling into my gut. Time to click onto another tab… ugh.
Updates, don’t get me started. That’s what Tom Johnson complained about in his post earlier this month against PDF content.
PDFs - great for printable content, bad for web.