:shock: Ouch!
yeah, that is a bit steep!
Honestly I've only ever used occasionally so I've never taken the time to look fully at the web page.
I think its probably aimed at business users.
try this: http://pdftohtml.sourceforge.net/
win32 bit: http://guiguy.wminds.com/downloads/pdf2htmlgui/
Not the same but it may serve the same purpose....
yeah, that is a bit steep!
Honestly I've only ever used occasionally so I've never taken the time to look fully at the web page.
I think its probably aimed at business users.
try this: http://pdftohtml.sourceforge.net/
win32 bit: http://guiguy.wminds.com/downloads/pdf2htmlgui/
Not the same but it may serve the same purpose....
Actually, I wondered (asked) if anyone else reads/understands the documents much slower when the text is smudged.
Hm, "smudged" how, then? Cleartype-style text antialiasing (and most text antialiasing in general) pretty much sucks IMHO, it's supposed to be easier on the eyes, but it's a lot slower to read for me.
Or actually maybe the problem lies more in the alignment of words/paragraphs. Like in books, aligning whole lines to start and end at an exact pixel of the X axis.... It looks good from 2-3 metres away, but kills any fast-read skill, and slows down normal reading, for me.
I don't find that too bad, when it's used moderately - like, stretching a max of 3-5 characters or something. If it's more than that, it does hurt readability big-time.
I'd like to add my 2 cents, if I may.
I prefer antialiased text, to I love PDFs :mrgreen: I don't know about "understanding the antialiased text slower than aliased". I remember one site claiming that reading from long lines (ones that require your eyes to perform long horizontal moves) requires more time to understand. Well I don't have any of these problems :P And as for chm format: java development kit 1.5 (a.k.a "5.0") documentation is only 25MB in chm format, while it's 40MB inside a ZIP and more than 100MB uncompressed. It's also very easy to convert anything into chm.
I don't like RTFs, DOCs, etc. Mainly because I don't like Word, which is too slow and tries to be 'too inteligent' :P
I prefer antialiased text, to I love PDFs :mrgreen: I don't know about "understanding the antialiased text slower than aliased". I remember one site claiming that reading from long lines (ones that require your eyes to perform long horizontal moves) requires more time to understand. Well I don't have any of these problems :P And as for chm format: java development kit 1.5 (a.k.a "5.0") documentation is only 25MB in chm format, while it's 40MB inside a ZIP and more than 100MB uncompressed. It's also very easy to convert anything into chm.
I don't like RTFs, DOCs, etc. Mainly because I don't like Word, which is too slow and tries to be 'too inteligent' :P
java development kit 1.5 (a.k.a "5.0") documentation is only 25MB in chm format, while it's 40MB inside a ZIP and more than 100MB uncompressed. It's also very easy to convert anything into chm.
That's solid compression for you - zip compresses per-file, while CHM (and things like RAR and 7zip) compresses "as a chunk". Compression Dictionary doesn't get flushed that way.
Word too slow? *shrug*. Word2000 was pretty fast even on a pmmx-200/64ram.
I like PDF, the Portable Document Format is an excellent standard that does it's job very well and though the files may seem a little bloated they are quite compact for what they achieve. I use PDFs constantly at work, transferring all internal and external documents using the format as HDS (our main software) generates PDF files as a default output as does SnapTracker and just about everything else we use. It makes for platform independant documents that I can "send and forget" since I have no need to worry that an admin in Vancouver might use an iMac or it might be viewed on a PDA. Acrobat reader is available for every platform I have ever run into including my Symbol StrongARM PDA. The whole idea behind PDF files is to provide a standard interchange format for documents, .DOC doesn't do that nor does .CHM, try to open a CHM file in PocketPC and see how far you get, on the other hand PDFs work perfectly fine. For searching, yes there is a lot to be desired there but I have a catalog library in PDF format that I use constantly and can search it without any problems, the library is around 10GB split across several PDF files.
The only beef I have with PDF is that it is pretty much monopolized by a single company (Adobe) and the 3rd party conversion and editing suites are generally substandard junk as far as I have seen, though I have to admit that I have not tried many of the commercial ones.
Donkey
The only beef I have with PDF is that it is pretty much monopolized by a single company (Adobe) and the 3rd party conversion and editing suites are generally substandard junk as far as I have seen, though I have to admit that I have not tried many of the commercial ones.
Donkey
I remember one site claiming that reading from long lines (ones that require your eyes to perform long horizontal moves) requires more time to understand.
Yes, this is a well known fact. The number of characters per line is 66 including spaces and punctuation, ideally, and depending on the size of the text. The reasoning is that you can capture a full line of text in your field of view without moving your eyes. It is also true that too short a line slows one down. Well, i don't really like pdfs, but they are no worse than an ASCII or a text document.
I dislike Latex. I tried to start using it, really, but i really don't like it.
Your best bet today is CSS + XHTML. Everyone has a web browser, and CSS is just great, you can totally separe your content from your design. They are also fast evolving technologies, and, best of all, they are ready for the web!
(By the way, printing html pages with CSS is sweet, you just have to add a media=print stylesheet and the browser will choose it automatically when it prints the page)
I dislike Latex. I tried to start using it, really, but i really don't like it.
Your best bet today is CSS + XHTML. Everyone has a web browser, and CSS is just great, you can totally separe your content from your design. They are also fast evolving technologies, and, best of all, they are ready for the web!
(By the way, printing html pages with CSS is sweet, you just have to add a media=print stylesheet and the browser will choose it automatically when it prints the page)
You don't get exact rendering in all browsers with CSS/XHTML though, so it's unsuitable for "real" print jobs. And if you need of math expressions, especially the more complex ones, there isn't really any way around LaTeX.
I do enjoy writing html/css more than tex though :)
I do enjoy writing html/css more than tex though :)
If you refuse to download PS and PDF files, then you are refusing to read nearly all the research papers available on the web.. what a shame
If you refuse to download PS and PDF files, then you are refusing to read nearly all the research papers available on the web.. what a shame
Who said anything about refusing to read it, just because it's a sucky screen-format? :)
You mean besides the original poster (who doesnt even have a PDF reader) ?