[tbb-dev] Current thoughts on tb-manual presentation

Matt Pagan matt at pagan.io
Thu May 29 15:20:11 UTC 2014


Lunar:
> Matt Pagan:
>> Lunar:
>>> I am still unconvinced that PDF is an interesting format for what
>>> we want to achieve.
>>>
>>
>> This may not change your mind, but I wanted to point out to you that a
>> pdf file created with wkhtmltopdf (the wk is for webkit) would preserve
>> the interactivity of any svg files that are contained therein, (e.g. the
>> interactive svg file you made specifically for the manual).
> 
> A PDF does not reflow its text content according to the display size.
> So if you have a small screen or wish bigger fonts, you have to spend
> all your time scrolling. 

No more so than one would with any other pdf document. The format is
pretty widely used. IMO, users' likely previous familiarity with this
format is an advantage.

It's harder to change the text colors (think
> about visually impaired users). 

I'd like to point out that visually impaired users can inverse the
colors in a pdf document if they wish, usually with Ctrl-I or the
equivalent.

> I don't know about text-to-speech with
> wkhtmltopdf but most solutions are working fine with web browsers.
> 

wkhtmltopdf uses the WebKit rendering engine to display web content,
which is what Chrome and the Android Web browser use. Content is
rendered the same way as it is in those browsers. The text-to-speech
capabilities are the same is in Google Chrome.

> PDF are great when you print. For online uses, really, nope (unless you
> want the feeling of a book — but we are not doing a book).

I got the impression I was working on something book-like. I'm familiar
with other user manuals being either books or pdf documents.


-- 
Matt Pagan
PGP: 0xE9284418E360583C


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