On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 11:10, Jamie Bresner <[email protected]> wrote: > What should I take into account when considering adding "Get Adobe > Acrobat" next to a PDF link on a web page. Is this necessary?
First question that comes to my mind: is the PDF download itself really THIS necessary, actually? If the content is probably to be viewed on screen: chances are VERY high, that it isn't and should better be provided right away in the browser. If OTOH the content is to be printed by the users: is the advantage of PDF over HTML in terms of typography and layout really THIS important, that it justifies the potential hassle for the audience? And, OTTH, if the audience is pontetially really design-aware enough, chances are quite high again, that you absolutely do NOT need to tell them to get a PDF reader nor where. If not, and if once more it is moronic corporate design police (with an understanding of corporate design being stuck somewhere in the seventies to eighties, at best) that requests that their oh-so-brilliantly designed junk that nobody wants to read anyway (SCNR) is to be delivered true to the smallest fraction of a point etc., they might want to consider, that, amongst other nasty pitfalls, the users's printer and/or monitor settings will mess up with the design anyway. (Further they might also want to try really hard to finally grasp a faint understanding of the difference between print and web content delivery). Bottom line: in the really minuscule amount of cases where a PDF truly makes sense (in my experience either scientific settings and the like or with a somewhat design-sensitive audience), your users already HAVE a PDF reader and know how to use it. If not – and this is the vast majority –, content delivery as PDF does not make much sense at all, and delivering HTML – optionally with some well-designed printer CSS – is better anyway. So forget about that hint. Sascha PS: There is much more software out there capable of properly displaying PDFs than Adobe's heavily bloated Acrobat Viewer. Unless you get paid by Adobe's marketing, you could as well provide a more vendor agnostic hint, if you absolutely had to... PPS: Nonetheless, personally I still vastly prefer the occasional PDF over the obnoxious pest of MS Word docs… ;-) ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
