[WEB4LIB] Re: PDF versus HTML

[george at library.caltech.edu]

True, true, and true.  PDF and/or HTML is not really a versus situation.
The one original contribution I can make to this discussion regards the
ubiquity of PDF viewers (plural; not just Adobe Acrobat Reader).

Virtually every consumer desktop computer shipped in the last decade in
North America has had Acrobat Reader installed at the factory.
Caltech's choice of PDF as the mandatory display format
<http://library.caltech.edu/etd/ETD_FAQ.htm#PDF> for electronic theses.
With more than 1700 dissertations online
<http://etd.caltech.edu/reports/collection_growth_by_month.html>, and
several thousand other documents within Caltech Collection of Open
Digital Archives (CODA) <http://coda.caltech.edu>, and over 5 years of
operation, we've yet to receive a complaint that PDF is not readable.

PDF has multiple free viewers available for all(?) desktop operating
systems.  At this stage of the game, free PDF generators are available
for virtually all desktop operating systems and many word processing
suites.

Bottom line, if it makes sense to use PDF, you should hardly shy away
from it.  If it makes sense to use HTML, go for it.  If both are
relatively convenient and easy to sync, the more the merrier.

George S. Porter
Sherman Fairchild Library of Engineering & Applied Science
California Institute of Technology
Mail Code 1-43, Pasadena, CA 91125-4300
Telephone (626) 395-3409 Fax (626) 431-2681
http://library.caltech.edu
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