The PDF Issue

From: Lewis Nerd

What's the purpose of a newsletter that only comes out a week so that most of the news is so old, in pdf format that people have repeatedly requested be changed to HTML?

For your information, out of the 10,000+ people that read the M2 each month, I have gotten criticism of the PDF format from about three of them, while, at the same time, we continually get messages of encouragement and praise from residents and Lindens alike.

The M2 is a weekly paper at this point, mainly because that's as often as we can get it put out. If we had more staff, perhaps it could be more often, but at this point that is not possible. I apologize if that isn't often enough for you.

For anyone that doesn't understand why we prefer to publish the M2 in the PDF (Adobe Acrobat) format, let me explain a few things.

Why PDF?

Some people ask, "Why do you publish the Messenger in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format?" A very few have even said, "I hate PDF files. It seems like every time I get one on the Internet, it just takes forever to load."

The PDF (Portable Document Format) file is now the worldwide standard for full documents, for documents that contain not just text, but formatting and graphics. When you want things to look the same, on any computer, PDF is the way to go. You just can't publish a newspaper (or anything else) in HTML and expect consistent results.

Plus, it's a cross-platform standard. PDFs can be read on any computer with the correct reader. Mac and Linux computers come with reader programs, and the vast majority of PCs use Adobe Acrobat Reader - a free download here; other PDF readers are available as well, including the Foxit reader. In fact, most people report the Foxit reader to load much more quickly than Adobe's own reader. If you've been unhappy with your ability to read the M2, why not try the Foxit reader?

Adobe, the creator of the PDF format, summed it up best in a quote from their web site:

"PDF is a universal file format that preserves the fonts, images, graphics, and layout of any source document, regardless of the application and platform used to create it. Adobe® PDF files are compact and complete, and can be shared, viewed, and printed by anyone with free Adobe Reader® software."
Have you ever tried to print from a web page? Most web pages aren't designed for printing, and the printing results vary from computer to computer. Have you ever tried saving a web page to a local file on your computer? It's generally not possible to do that because web pages are usually constructed on the fly from a variety of sources.

PDF files are downloadable as a single file. All of the fonts, images and inclusions that are normally pulled into a web page from different sources are all embedded in that single PDF document file. You can save it on your computer and view or print it at your leisure.

Thank you for defining why you use PDF, I figured I would define "Why not just PDF". Everyone understands you want it to look like a newspaper. The problem is not that - it is that you don't ALSO make the content available in HTML. The PDF file is not very accessible, on many levels. It is not easy to read by any means because of the way a newspaper reads - it does not read sequentially like a magazine, which is better suited for the format than a newspaper. It has to be about more than just maintaining the look of a print newspaper.

Also, you are not even taking advantage of some of the more advanced features of the PDF format that would help to mitigate some of it - every story in the paper should have a direct link from the table of contents for quick access, and the links within the document should all be live, including the links on ads.

I know dozens of people at least who have made the same comments about the MM - love the paper, hate the PDF format. I spoke at length with Katt as to why you are using the format, and I do understand some of the current limitations you face. However, every major newspaper (and most minor ones) also have their content made available in HTML, for good reason. HTML is also cross platform, much easier to read, and makes it possible to link to your stories and reference them. Think about how much more your readership would expand if people could link to articles - it is a fundemental part of bringing traffic to a site.

To dimiss the use of HTML for a web based paper is not recognizing the needs of your own audience. There is zero reason that the same content being put into the PDF file cannot also be made into linked web pages - there are all kinds of content management systems that make the process easy. If you are so certain that everyone loves the PDF sooo much that you can afford not to pay attention to the HTML, take a poll here and on your site, and see the results.

Cristiano, thank you for the thoughtful and lucid comments you've made.

There are some very good reasons to do just what you suggest -- make the paper available in both formats. Up until recently, I had only been aware of certain utilities that purport to convert PDF to HTML, but pretty much rape the format of the document and produce what appears to resemble a poorly formatted Word document with placeholders to show where the pictures used to be. I have only recently become aware of more capable converters, and I will certainly consult with Katt about investigating the feasability of a dual-format availability.

Insofar as linking the articles and ads, we have begun doing that just in the last few weeks. The "jumps" (i.e. "see SUBJECT, page xx) are now linked so that you can go to the page where an article is continued simply by clicking on that jump text; for the most part, all of our ads are linked to the advertiser's in-world locations or websites. As far as the table of contents, not all of the articles in the paper appear in that index; like most newspapers, it contains only highlights of that issue's contents.

At any rate, thank you for the measured and intelligent comments. I would appreciate any comments anyone else would care to make.

Thanks,

P2

The point I was making is that just because you like, or dislike, something - or see no point for it - doesn't mean that every other player feels the same way.

Just because 3 people responded out of 10,000 downloads (not necessarily individual people) doesn't mean that only 3 people don't like the PDF format. It only means that 3 people bothered to tell you. I don't like the PDF format much either, but I've never told you before. That means your readership's dissatisfaction of PDF, that you are aware of now, has increased by 33%.

Figures don't necessarily mean what they appear.

Just out of interest, I have a 'short bus' I picked up in a Sandbox somewhere, and although it drives like a pig, it's fun sometimes to drive round the streets of one of the residential sims like Boardman in it.

Why is driving a bus round one of the few road networks in SL any less valid than flying an imaginary plane or sailing an imaginary yacht round in game?

Lewis

Point well taken.

P2

This is certainly not on topic but more to the original thread that spawned this one, but I remember seeing something on a show about video games that game players in Japan are fascinated with transit simulations - driving buses, trains, etc. They have games that are simply driving a bus and picking up passengers on a route and dropping them off - that's all there is to do, and yet they are very popular. I found that really interesting.

It might not be the solution for you, but what about simply having the PDF version and an HTML version that aren't identical in appearance? I could be way off-base, but couldn't you use a free PHP-based publishing program (like Drupal or PHPNews) that is "skinned" via CSS? It's a ton of work, I'm sure, but it may be an option.

Or not.

Your mileage may vary. If you ride the bus, your mileage might be more static.

Microsoft Train Simulator has activites just like that. Haven't played it for a while, but theres hundreds of addon expansions, trains, routes and activities for it.

What's the point in Flight Sim except take off, fly somewhere, try to land without crashing?

It's all fun to someone, otherwise they wouldn't write it.

Lewis

I've looked at the MM a few times, but no more than that. One reason I wouldn't look at it more is that I get plenty of SL by being inworld and reading the forums. The other reason is that it is a PDF file. I hate PDF files, they are fine for printing, but for delivering content to me on the web they are terrible. The way they load is generally terrible, making one wait for individual pages to load in many cases, the way the vertical scrolling works is perverse, and the page sizes are generally designed for paper when the actual reading is most likely to be on a screen. Doing a search for text is slow. The icons n the Acrobat reader are obsure.

Do many of the users actually print them out? If not, the usefulness of PDF files for representing print documents is largely wasted.

The difference being that Train Simulator was very much a limited niche product here, where some of the transit sims have been wildly popular in Japan. Flight simulator is in a different category I think because of the fascination with flight - it is not considered an ordinary activity like driving a bus, it's much more exotic, even if ultimately it is true, you are just taking off and landing. I don't like any of them myself - though I did play this European game called Traffic Giant that was about planning traffic routes for buses and trains, and it sounds boring as hell, but for some reason I was addicted to it. To each their own, I definitely agree.

I have no problem with the PDF format at all, just the content. Too many ads and the obvious advertorials by your staff. That's why I don't bother reading it any more.

I routinely ignore the pdf files, because, while pdf is great for preserving the exact font, layout and formatting of a document, those issues are really rather irrelevant when reading a document on a computer screen (as opposed to trying to *print* it on multiple machines on different platforms at different sites). The extra disk churn, wait, and processing overhead for pdf compared to html just isn't worth the bother to me.

Fact is, all the information content can just as easily be reproduced using html as pdf. And with the more advanced html and css features, you can even make it accessible to disabled users, something that is inherently impossible with pdf and its focus on hard-copy concepts.

That's one more potential reader who hates pdf for you. That makes five now I guess.

I agree - I rarely read PDF files, often they are poorly formatted with print-sized graphics (and hence print-sized DPI) and take both ages to download and display, searching and saving is often inconvenient.

I much prefer to read news & articles in properly cross-referenced HTML, which also allows bookmarking and all the wonders of modern web browsers.

I guess I'm the oddball here. For text that I have no intention of editing, I prefer the PDF format over any other.

Also, you are not even taking advantage of some of the more advanced features of the PDF format that would help to mitigate some of it - every story in the paper should have a direct link from the table of contents for quick access, and the links within the document should all be live, including the links on ads.

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We use PDF for our sl shoppingGuide and I hate it too. But we are working toward something different for our future publications. We hav all our pages Linked from the table of contents,ie You wish to look at a particular categotry you click on that heading and you end up at that page. Subsequently if you see a store you like on that page you can click the store location an teleport there. Kinda like, find a category - find a store - click and your there. We are not like the good ole MM or the second style magazine we are just a plain old shopping catelogue to provide business and residents an alternative to getting lost in the Find-Classifieds. Heres a link if you wanna check it out. www.mudgemccann.com and see the menu for shopping guide.

Cristiano, I think you mean "Densha de GO!" (dunno if they have an English title), which is a popular game series here, but not as widely popular as Final Fantasy or Resident Evil series. I guess the TV program you watched was exaggerating a bit, as they usually do when covering Japan.
I believe the fans of the game mainly consist of older male, who used to be fascinated by spanking shiny bullet trains as well as old steam trains as little boys. It's like their dreams come true to be able to drive them. I suppose the game is popular probably because public transportations play bigger roles in our lives than yours, and that we are sort of obsessed by the idea that trains should ALWAYS be puncutal (thus my constant whining when travelling Europe). The challenge of the game is to deliver the train on time and on the mark, without a second or an inch of error, which takes a lot of tips and tricks to learn and getting used to. Personally I have no idea what's so fun about being punctual, to which I'm sure the fans will say "Women...!"

Back on topic, I agree that M2 can have an HTML version along with RSS/ATOM feeds. If it's a newspaper of the Metaverse, why not take advantage of metadata?

And Phoenix, your site is still inaccessible from Japan. I know it's a negligible problem for you because we are very small audience, but let me just say that the xenophobic policy of your hosting company is really, really lame. Is it a small town business? I mean, come on, kicking access from one whole country, not unique sets of IP? Please note that it's very peculiar as I usually have zero problem in accessing websites that are geographically located in the U.S., including myriads of SL-related sites.
If every co-lo hosts started to behave like that of your choice, the internet will cease to be what it is and become more like one huge cluster of intranet, just like in China. Just imagine what would happen if the server admins of the rest of the world decide to kick pings and packets from the U.S. just because it is the world's biggest spam generator.
...Ouch, sorry about whining. I'm in no position to complain about your choice of hosting service. I just want my M2 *cries*

Even better would be the old fashioned Windows HLP files, not the modern chm files but the older style. That was such a good file format.

Well, I dont go much on your advertising, while reading most of this thread I thought it was about the Second Oppinion newsletter that gets delivered to my mailbox, which incidentally, I read. After going back and looking at this, it seems to be in html format and looks really nice.

I dont have a huge problem with PDF files, but they are far from ideal, despite what Adobe say about their own product. HTML, properly coded, referenced, linked, and all the rest, is my choice when creating web content.

It's not always the best format, but I believe its pros outway the cons. For example, the ability change font size and types within someone elses document, can greatly improve the viewing experiance. Sometimes, whoever made an Adobe document makes something that looks terrible to read for me, and is a perpetual pain scroling and resizing to get a good read. Also HTML properly coded is far more efficient and doesn't require you to launch an additional program as well as your web browser.

I read the MM every week ~shrugs~


My favorite parts are the editorials and the Sim of the Week.

I have read it since the day I did arrive in Second Life.

And I will continue to do so... there are few of us AL that have the time to produce such a product.. there are a few that can.. and less that want take time to do it... (its easier to complain).

--- so please keep on! We need YOU!

/Tina - working on my first EXAKT ”fashion product”.. now.. I am exited.. DD

Just a random suggestion.... Why not start up a supplemental blog for M2? That way you could publish articles in real time throughout the week in HTML, for those who prefer reading that way, but then collect the articles at the end of the week and publish a PDF, for those who prefer reading THAT way.

For what it's worth, I've been publishing in electronic formats for about ten years now, and have the same kind of love/hate relationship with PDF as many others have mentioned here in this thread. Yes, it's a great way to distribute a big chunk of related content at once; yes, it's definitely the most widely adopted eBook format on the planet right now; and yes, their buginess, slow download speeds, and weird parsing issues when trying to translate into another format drive me crazy as well. Also for what it's worth, when it comes to short pieces of content (i.e. newspaper articles), I much more prefer just subscribing to an RSS feed and being done with it, rather than having to remember to download a PDF file each week. And this, unfortunately, can only be done when publishing content in HTML format.

And as long as we're on the subject, I had a newbie question as well: When people here talk about M2 being published in HTML format, are they talking about a RL website, or some contraption in-game that lets you view HTML pages? If it's the latter, could someone tell me what it is and where I can get one? Thanks!

At this time, I don't know of any way to view HTML data in-world, although "HTML on a prim" has been promised to us for what seems like forever.

I assume that those who are asking for an HTML version of the M2 are simply referring to reading it on our website (www.metaversemessenger.com).

If and when we DO finally get HTML on a prim, though, that would certainly be another important reason to make an HTML version available.

I will also look into an RSS feed for those of you who are interested in that.

One thing, for those who find PDF's slow to open... do consider trying the Foxit Reader that I referenced earlier in the thread. I find that Adobe's line of software products are just about the biggest bloatware apps around, even more so than Miscrosoft's, and the Foxit reader appears to be a sleek, streamlined alternative.

Thanks to everyone for the comments!

P2

the pdf can be a pain but its always worth the effort to read M2