Comments on: Conversion for the Web http://www.symphonious.net/2009/11/04/conversion-for-the-web/ Living in a state of accord. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 07:41:05 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Adrian Sutton http://www.symphonious.net/2009/11/04/conversion-for-the-web/comment-page-1/#comment-174347 Adrian Sutton Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:22:09 +0000 http://www.symphonious.net/?p=1253#comment-174347 But generating the PDF is only a very tiny part of the problem. It's as simple to paste from Word into EditLive! as it is to print - user's already know how to copy paste. The problem is they don't know how to use the publishing system to take the content in whatever form, apply all the required meta-data, select the right section of the site and finally publish it. But generating the PDF is only a very tiny part of the problem. It’s as simple to paste from Word into EditLive! as it is to print – user’s already know how to copy paste. The problem is they don’t know how to use the publishing system to take the content in whatever form, apply all the required meta-data, select the right section of the site and finally publish it.

]]> By: Andrew Shebanow http://www.symphonious.net/2009/11/04/conversion-for-the-web/comment-page-1/#comment-174346 Andrew Shebanow Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:03:13 +0000 http://www.symphonious.net/?p=1253#comment-174346 Most of those costs have already been incurred for PDF. Pretty much everyone who has a PC already has the ability to generate PDFs using the Print command. Most government employees already know how to Print, and it works well with the tools they already have. That is precisely why so many government documents are put out in PDF today. Of course Adobe would like everyone in government to buy and upgrade their Acrobat Pro licenses on a regular basis. But the fact is that most modern OSes, office suites and such have PDF output built-in, so they don't have to buy it unless they want to get into automated PDF workflows (around form data, approvals, etc.) Again, I'm not saying things wouldn't be better if governments didn't put out their information in additional formats like XML or HTML that were more amenable to certain kinds of processing.. But demanding that they dump PDF and move to something entirely new en masse is foolish and impractical. Most of those costs have already been incurred for PDF. Pretty much everyone who has a PC already has the ability to generate PDFs using the Print command. Most government employees already know how to Print, and it works well with the tools they already have. That is precisely why so many government documents are put out in PDF today.

Of course Adobe would like everyone in government to buy and upgrade their Acrobat Pro licenses on a regular basis. But the fact is that most modern OSes, office suites and such have PDF output built-in, so they don’t have to buy it unless they want to get into automated PDF workflows (around form data, approvals, etc.)

Again, I’m not saying things wouldn’t be better if governments didn’t put out their information in additional formats like XML or HTML that were more amenable to certain kinds of processing.. But demanding that they dump PDF and move to something entirely new en masse is foolish and impractical.

]]> By: Adrian Sutton http://www.symphonious.net/2009/11/04/conversion-for-the-web/comment-page-1/#comment-174345 Adrian Sutton Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:54:52 +0000 http://www.symphonious.net/?p=1253#comment-174345 I guess my point is that even when you use PDF you're going to incur all those costs. Moving stuff to the web is expensive and difficult - maybe some government departments could just dump a bunch of PDFs in a directory but that's not really what anyone would want to get out of the process. As soon as you go beyond that you also get a whole heap of expensive problems to solve. I guess my point is that even when you use PDF you’re going to incur all those costs. Moving stuff to the web is expensive and difficult – maybe some government departments could just dump a bunch of PDFs in a directory but that’s not really what anyone would want to get out of the process. As soon as you go beyond that you also get a whole heap of expensive problems to solve.

]]> By: Andrew Shebanow http://www.symphonious.net/2009/11/04/conversion-for-the-web/comment-page-1/#comment-174344 Andrew Shebanow Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:49:27 +0000 http://www.symphonious.net/?p=1253#comment-174344 My point isn't that PDF is perfect or even great, my point is that it is a practical and cost effective solution today, while the HTML/XML advocates are all proposing to force every state, local, and federal agency to do things in a new way. This requires significant investment in IT, training of employees, and additional time to process each document. And that doesn't even address the problems that occur when non-governmental employees want to submit documents to the government, which will cause yet another set of IT, training, and time costs. The economic downside is huge for everyone except the publishers of software like EditLive! :-) My point isn’t that PDF is perfect or even great, my point is that it is a practical and cost effective solution today, while the HTML/XML advocates are all proposing to force every state, local, and federal agency to do things in a new way. This requires significant investment in IT, training of employees, and additional time to process each document. And that doesn’t even address the problems that occur when non-governmental employees want to submit documents to the government, which will cause yet another set of IT, training, and time costs. The economic downside is huge for everyone except the publishers of software like EditLive! :-)

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