Forum Moderators: phranque
Summary
Users get lost inside PDF files, which are typically big, linear text blobs that are optimized for print and unpleasant to read and navigate online. PDF is good for printing, but that's it. Don't use it for online presentation.
Uh, duh... I'm curious as to why people actually read the whole article.
Wonder if the next article will be "Popups: Annoying for Users"
Wonder if the next article will be "Popups: Annoying for Users"
My thought exactly... it seems like Jakob is setting up a straw man. Are many web designers actually producing content in PDF format in lieu of HTML? I haven't run across excessive use of PDFs for stuff that should properly be HTML. Maybe once in a while... but usually the PDFs I find are brochures, manuals, and the like which are intended to be printed by the user.
They can cause accessibility problems too. Newer screen reader software can recognize them, but many people using screen reader software can't afford to update very often and still cannot access files in pdf.
More dynamic pdf will lead to more pdf website replacements.
I was just talking to a person whose company set up an html homepage and the rest of the site is a catalog converted to pdf.
boo I say.
I see a lot of places that put various information in PDFs on their sites, only because they can make it appear like a real, honest-to-goodness brochure. Photo labs are very bad offenders in this.
I think that PDF files, along with any and every other "non-core" web technology (like Javascript, or Flash animations, or...) is prone to overuse, and abuse, by designers who want to "be cool" and don't know better. A web designer I know used at least one PDF per customer's site, because, in his mind, the fact that the PDF was created with an expensive piece of software (Don't even get me started) adds legitimacy to the percieved value of the contents... Which is a little bit like saying that a shopping list has more legitimacy than another because one was written with a $200 Cross pen...
The only reasonable use I can see for PDFs on the web is to disseminate graphic information - graphs, charts, and the like - which might need to be printed, or whose size when printed is important (a template, for instance). Other than that, it's a case of "we must because we can".
The point about "it's obvious" is somewhat beside the point. It's obvious to people who frequent this forum. But so is the idea that frames should mostly be avoided, yet we've recently had a discussion about what evidence can be cited against them. In the case of PDF for screen viewing, we can now point to the Neilsen article. He has, after all, tested PDF with real users and had recorded their objections.
PDF files are, of course, absolutely essential if you have documents intended for reading offline on your website. I don't think anyone will defend HTML as an adequate markup language for long printed documents. In fact, the main argument I had to contend with when I first started using PDF was that I should have been putting Word documents online instead!
PDF is a lot like Flash on the web: When it's used for what it's intended to be used for, it can be a great thing. Problem is, people often do NOT use it correctly.
Browser manufacturers should put pop-up warning boxes on PDF links:
ATTENTION: This is a PDF file
Would you like to download this file to your desktop, print it immediately or view it in your browser window?[Download] [Print Now] [View Online]
However tempted i disagree. Those creating websites containing PDF documents should put up such boxes.
The same goes for any other "non-native" format, eg. flash, word, excel, powerpoint, mp3, avi, mov, executables, compressed archives, etc.
If you want to install some browser plugin or software or file extension mapping on your OS then that's nice, but imho, one should not by default expect visitors of any given site to be interested in running other file types than those normally associated with the concept of "browsing".
/claus
Browser manufacturers should put pop-up warning boxes on PDF links:
How I wish they would! It would make my life so much easier. Either a pop-up like that, or ban that darn auto-Adobe-launch within the browser (or only allow people who know what they are doing to enable the auto-launch feature).
ATTENTION: This is a PDF fileWould you like to download this file to your desktop, print it immediately or view it in your browser window?
[Download] [Print Now] [View Online]
You will also need to give the user an option to cancel loading the page at all so they would need to add: [Cancel] to that list.
Steve
Computer screens are a poor substitute for an 8 and a half by eleven sheet of paper. Reading many documents that are in this format, or book format or magazine format is difficult.
Our technology (screens) is not supporting what many users want.
When discussing CSS, people say that they want to be able to format HTML pages as easily and effectively as a PDF file.
The article is meant to be a lead-in to getting a person to subscribe to a newsletter. The tabloid-like
presentation "PDF: Unfit for Human Consumption" is grounded more in marketing-hype than in what I've experienced.
I think someone has already said that you could make the same extravagant claims against Flash and Power Point.
The hype worked and Webmasterworld has billboarded the marketing article on their opening page. Perhaps we will get to use signature lines in the future now that marketing stuff is getting top billing.
Google are to be applauded for their efforts in dealing with PDF files. I mostly do technical searches and when I'm working with hardware rather than software, the relevant documents are often PDF files.
I hate PDF files, but if the alternative is not being able to find the information I require, I'll put up with them.
Kaled.
Pdf's are a nightmare for browser viewing and their true value is obscured by this fact. I'm sure Adobe is well aware of this and will provide a better browser translator in the future. Adobe's future may depend on how well they execute browser integration.
Yes PDFs were designed for print, pre-press originally, it's basically an all-inclusive postscript file. However, it's excellent for making available printed materials for download. It is THE perfect medium for transmitting product manuals, official forms (think IRS), official company documents, etc... It also is a workflow workhorse in situations like posting a company's library of Word documents to the web. All formatting is retained, searchable keywords can be applied, etc...
The problem people find on the web is not so much in the PDF format itself, but in poor implementations of it. By using standard fonts so they don't have to be imbedded, ensuring that text is text (scanned TIFFs slapped in a PDF is not right), using proper compression levels and establishing a useful bookmark TOC for navigation a web publishing can overcome all the problems Jakob implies are the bane of the format.
It's a simple case of RTFM, and Jakob, as always, fails to impart the simplistic reality of the situation and instead goes for sensationalism and catchy headlines.
This page does not yet meet the requirements for Bobby AAA Approved status..
The striking part is that Jakob's page was certainly designed for the web and he can't seem to manage basics like valid code and you would think that a guru would have a Bobby Approved page. ;) Usability must only count for sighted folks.
You may also want to uncheck 'Check browser settings when starting Acrobat' as i've found this presents you with an entirely misleading error message if you have chosen not to display PDFs using the browser plugin.
The only problem with this method is that there is NO option to display the file in your browser, but at least you avoid the dreaded Adobe splash screen when clicking on innocent-looking links ;)
>>The page Jakob's article is on is unfit for consumption, it doesn't validate. Nor does the accessibility and usability "guru" manage to have a page that Bobby likes.
Granted, but on both counts the errors/omissions are negligable from a usability standpoint.
"If anyone's interested, you can prevent Acrobat reader's obnoxious browser plugin behaviour . . ."
Obnoxious? Doesn't obnoxious mean 'highly offensive'? Is the interface to PDF any worse than RealOne or Apple's AVI interface. Doesn't Norton Antivirus put up a splash screen every time it loads?
I probably load one PDF file a day on average. For something to be obnoxious it would have to far worse than the Acrobat Reader.
Some presentations of data require absolute control that given the state of the art and the variety of browsers can't give. What product do you use that gives you the quality of PDF and is less obnoxious?
What product do you use that gives you the quality of PDF and is less obnoxious?
Rich Text File (RTF)?
The web is not about highly designed print layouts. The web is about finding information quickly.
All relevant information should be given in HTML. You can always implement some "print this page" option serving the content of a page with a proper page design that fits most paper formats used worldwide. This works even with instruction manuals, in most cases. Who cares about aesthetically precise typo?
IMHO using PDF is mostly due to adhering to some print-minded concept. - Concerning instruction manuals: I want to know how to do this-and-that. But I don't want to know how some designer thought this information 'should' look like.
Sorry for that rant - but all this PDF stuff is so annoying.
[edit: typo]
Those creating websites containing PDF documents should put up such boxes.
but hasn't received a single complaint in the 3 years I've worked here
Maybe because all who don't like PDFs were away as soon as they realized PDF loading? ;)
Imho, it goes for PDF, powerpoint, avi, mp3, exe... the lot. I really think that links to anything not being made in html (or other traditional web-developing tools - not meaning FP, rather asp, php, so on) deserves some kind of warning and an opt-out. Yes, even Java applets and Flash. On the other hand, i know these are "fundamentalist views", and i don't expect full understanding.
I don't think "PDFs Unfit for Human Consumption" (*), rather i think it's unfit for consumption in a browser - i like it when i can print it and read it off paper though, but it should be something that deserves it - not something you might as well have made using html. Things that cannot be made using html can perfectly well be delivered using a download link, and Flash sites/Java games are quite allright as long as i do get a chance to opt out before my browser starts downloading and processing.
For me, a visible document extension or the abbreviation PDF (or an icon) is enough. I just want fast pages, really fast - and i really don't need any more alertboxes of any kinds ;)
/claus
(*) Note: Didn't this title use a bit less .. politically correct language just before btw?
<edit>typo</edit>
[edited by: claus at 6:37 pm (utc) on July 21, 2003]
At any rate I'm glad he wrote it because I have a lot of customers that just want to put up pdf's of new material on their web sites. I felt I couldn't push them too hard to also provide an HTML version because it looked like I was just trying to creat more work for myself.
Now I can point them to some material and hopefully they can make an educated decision on their own.
And unfortunately, there is nothing you can do to code the link so it will save the file (or even prompt to save) rather than automatically open it in the browser window.
Erm, not quite true, I think; Have you tried something like (in PHP) the snippet below which I used for Excel, but I'd have thought something similar for PDF could be done - though I may be wrong.
# Send headers for Excel
header("Content-Type: application/vnd.ms-excel");
header("Content-disposition: attachment");
header("Expires: 0");
header("Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0");
# Show the content
echo $html;
It needs to be called by having a link to?export=pdf or something, then have if (isSet ($_GET['export'])):
but hasn't received a single complaint in the 3 years I've worked here
Maybe because all who don't like PDFs were away as soon as they realized PDF loading?
It certainly wouldn't be the first time I've radically changed part of the site based on visitor feedback. But if people don't want to take the time to send in feedback, I'm not going to fret about what they might be thinking.
i know these are "fundamentalist views", and i don't expect full understanding
But if people don't want to take the time to send in feedback, I'm not going to fret about what they might be thinking.
I remember my Grandma telling:
No answer is an answer, too.
