| The
following guidelines for PDF authoring may not help you entirely avoid any problems,
but the vast majority of your users and readers will be thankful nonetheless.
Take good care of your PDFs when you make them, and everyone who ever uses the
file will thank you for your consideration. - If
the document is very long, offer "chapter" or "article" PDFs in addition to a
single file for the entire document.
- If
you add bookmarks, congratulations! You are an educated PDF publisher! But be
SURE to set the PDF Initial View to show "Bookmarks Panel and Page". Otherwise
most users will have no idea they are there at all!
- Files
greater than 10 pages in length should ideally include bookmarks.
- Files
greater than 20 pages in length MUST include bookmarks, or your readers will be
stuck flipping pages.
- Include
web links on your PDFs to return to your Web site. 99.9% of PDF files do NOT include
this feature.
- Avoid
2 (or more) column text on your documents unless absolutely necessary. If you
do use more than 1 column, consider the Article Threads feature to ensure easier
readability.
- Always
indicate the size of the file so users can make an informed decision about downloading
it.
- Always
ensure that files are "Optimized for Fast Web View" (exception: files containing
form-fields should NOT be optomized for Fast Web View.)
- Ensure
that the server hosting the files supports Fast Web View. Most do automatically.
- Ensure
the file is as small as possible. PDF files are frequently WAY "overweight".
Use Acrobat's Optimizer to reduce their size.
First
published on Planet
PDF. Non-commercial reuse is permitted only when attributed to Duff Johnson,
Document Solutions, Inc. www.document-solutions.com. |
