PDF Research Universal Publishing Design...
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Definition...
"Universal Publishing Design" is a term we use to describe the new discipline publishing designers need to employ to fully serve their clients. Not only must a design solution work for the project at hand, but care must be taken to consider how each particular solution might be "repurposed" in the future. Print projects become web pages; HTML scripting parameters change; platforms get fazed out; faster communication lines become standard; High Definition Television (HDTV) comes into vogue. Designing, per se, becomes part ESP and part on-going awareness of technical trends in media at large.
Another aspect of Universal Design is the ability to make type and graphic compositions compatible across different computer platforms without the need for users to have any particular fonts or programs to view the results. This is why HTML programming is so popular today. As fiber optic cables are installed, as transmission speeds improve, and as the demand for higher quality images increases, we believe that Adobe's PDF format will provide the foundation for a new, higher resolution internet (or equivalent).
Essentially the same phenomenon occurred twelve years ago as the result of the introduction of Adobe Postscript. Up until then, poor font availability, bitmap graphics, low color control, and poor printing limited the utility of digital files to fulfill graphic needs. Postscript changed all that by providing a page description language that enabled vector graphic solutions - scalable art, color, and font control that made high resolution printing and pre-press imagesetting possible.
From a cost/benefit standpoint, repurposing existing materials means that companies can reuse existing assets to accomplish newly defined objectives. New distribution channels can be exploited. And budgets can be amortized over a broad range of campaign applications - for instance, the production costs of a promotional CD-ROM can be amortized to include the cost of taking the same materials and uploading them onto the internet... and to produce a brochure... and to create internal sales materials.
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A collection of visuals from our
presentation on "The PDF Format: Universal Publishing" is
now available in PDF format. Best viewed with the PDFViewer
Helper.
Computer platforms for which Adobe Reader® is currently available. |
1. Universal Format Comparison
There are a number of formats that can be considered for use in the production of universally applicable documents. Among these are Adobe Acrobat (.pdf), Hummingbird Common Ground DigitalPaper (.dp), Microsoft Internet Assistant, Microsoft Help, and HTML. Published here is a Universal Format Comparison of these five formats across a broad range of feature criteria.
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Five Universal Formats compared across over 20 different criteria. |
2. PDF and Adobe FrameMaker
Adobe
FrameMaker
With Adobe FrameMaker(R) 5.5 and Adobe FrameMaker+SGML 5.5,
you can now save documents, even books, to Adobe PDF in one
easy step. Powerful navigation within and between documents
is automatically enabled:
- FrameMaker and FrameMaker+SGML automatically create and maintain hypertext links between tables of contents and indexes to each entry's location in Adobe PDF documents
- Cross references become Adobe PDF hypertext links
- FrameMaker paragraph tags, and FrameMaker+SGML elements, become Adobe PDF bookmarks
- Manually-inserted alerts become Adobe PDF annotations
- Text flows are automatically mapped to Adobe PDF article threads so that users can advance quickly to the next section of a document
- You can even save an entire set of books as Adobe PDF, and use converted hypertext links and cross-references to help navigate between them!
FrameMaker products now come with Acrobat 3.01, which includes Acrobat Distiller(R) for Adobe PDF file creation, Acrobat Exchange(R) for viewing, enhancing, and optimizing Adobe PDF files for page-at-a-time delivery over the Web, Acrobat's free viewing companion product, Acrobat Reader, and much more!
With the new Adobe(R) FrameMaker(R) 5.5 and Adobe FrameMaker+SGML 5.5, it's a snap to publish content-rich documents to the Web. Once you're done with a document, simply use the Save As command and select HTML as your format.
- Save your text and table-rich documents, and books, directly to HTML -
- FrameMaker automatically maps your document styles, or SGML elements, to HTML tags
- Distribute automatically generated style sheet information with each HTML file to control the appearance of your page
- Use a simple dialog box to adjust the mapping of paragraph, character andcross-reference formats to HTML tags and formats
- Divide FrameMaker documents on export into two or more HTML files. All hypertext links are updated, and a table of contents is automatically generated
- Quickly edit HTML mapping information on the document's reference page
- Add text and graphics to the beginning and end of your exported HTML file without changing the look of your FrameMaker document
- Create client-side image maps from your FrameMaker document using simple hypertext commands
- Insert special HTML code into your document without changing the look of your page
- Save and share HTML mapping information from one FrameMaker document to another
- Reuse valuable information time and time again - get more mileage from your documentation
All in all, the newest version of FrameMaker makes HTML conversion - once a painstaking and time-consuming process - simple and straightforward. Now distributing documents on-line, or within a company via its intranet, will be easier than ever, an important consideration in these communication-focused times.
Creating PDFs from FrameMaker Documents
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a production of Performance Graphics ©1998 The Miller De Wulf Corporation |