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Hmmm...
Hmmm...
 [Dec. 2007] Linkless
index in online help
The "online help" for Acrobat 3D Toolkit (included
with Acrobat 3D versions 7 and 8) is in fact a 552-page print-oriented
PDF. Assuming that the technical writers who produced the document
did not have the tools or the know-how or the time to create
real online help from the source documents, they could have greatly
improved the PDF provided in lieu of a help system.
For example, proper bookmarks, collapsed under the top levels,
would have assisted user orientation. Instead, the PDF opens
without bookmarks displayed, so that the user (if aware of the
possibility at all) has to open the bookmarks every time the
"online help" is consulted. Moreover, even when the
bookmarks are displayed, all bookmark levels are expanded, requiring
substantial scrolling and clicking to access a topic, and obscuring
the document structure. Not to mention the all-too-common lack
of visual bookmark properties such as font weight, style or color,
which could have helped the user differentiate between levels.
Luckily, the page numbers in the table of contents are linked,
as are page numbers in cross-references throughout the PDF. However,
the links are not visually identifiable, and only the page numbers
themselves are linked (not the topic or reference text). Again,
the user will have to work harder to identify a link and activate
it.
 As
to the index, it is there but has no links at all. OK, the PDF
was authored with Word, and converted to PDF using the Acrobat
PDFMaker add-on, which does not create links in Word indexes.
But do end users trying to click index entries really care which
authoring tool was used? When the authoring tool does not create
links automatically, they should be added. This can be done manually
in Acrobat, or using a third-party tool. For example, ARTS PDF Aerialist Professional
can (among many other useful functions) create links to specific
pages based on numbers found on the page. I ran a test on
the index of the "online help" and 1829 links
were created in a few seconds, only a few of which were redundant.
[PS. Even-numbered pages are "© 2005-2007 Adobe
Systems Incorporated and its licensors. All Rights Reserved",
whereas odd-numbered pages are "Copyright © Right Hemisphere
2007. All rights reserved".]
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