Reference > Help Formats

Adobe's Portable Document Format is now the de facto industry standard format for electronic distribution of printable manuals. PDF provides a high level of formatting fidelity. Layout and appearance are "fixed", and unlike HTML it is not dependent on the quirks of browsers.

It is also a compact, single-file format that is now supported by all major computer platforms as well as Windows. Navigation can be quite good but it is less flexible for on-screen viewing and navigation than HTML Help. The domain of PDF is printable manuals with clearly-defined layout and formatting that do not change on different systems. It is suitable for downloading but not for online viewing as users must always download the entire document, even if they only want to view a single page.

PDF is also used for Help & Manual's Print User Manual function.

Features and pros and cons of Adobe PDF:

File extension:	.PDF
PDF version:	The PDF output conforms to version 1.2 of the PDF specification and can be viewed with version 3 and above of Adobe Acrobat and Acrobat Reader.
Format:	One .PDF file containing all text and graphics
Platforms:	All major computer platforms and operating systems
Typical use:	Print manuals distributed in electronic form, electronic books
Table of contents:	Yes, integrated in the PDF file. Hyperlinks are supported for on-screen viewing.
Keyword index:	Yes but limited, just page number references at the end of the document.
Full text search:	Yes, in Adobe Reader
Context-sensitive help:	No, zero support for context help
Popups:	No support for popups. Popup links are displayed as normal text.
Multimedia:	No multimedia support.
Printable by user:	Yes. The PDF format is ideal for printing.
Pros:	Printer orientated format supporting precise layout with specifically defined page sizes, margins, headers, footers, etc. Highly customizable with Help & Manual using print manual templates.
Cons:	Requires the Adobe Reader viewer but this is free and installed on almost all computers. On-screen readability is limited. Not appropriate for application help because of the lack of context-sensitive features and poor on-screen readability. Not suitable for online or network viewing because the entire document must be downloaded to view a single page.
Other information:	All the topics in the Invisible Topics section of your project are excluded from PDF output and printed manuals. This is by design because PDF is treated as a print format. By definition, Invisible Topics are excluded from the TOC and are designed to be displayed by reference only (i.e. with links) and so there is no logical place to put them in the PDF. If you want to include information from the Invisible Topics section in your PDF version you need to use Help & Manual's conditional output features to make alternative content for the PDF version.