[Info-vax] HP stopping VMS paper documentation ?

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

ChrisQ wrote 2011-11-27 12:49:
> On 11/26/11 21:07, Fritz Wuehler wrote:
>
>>> Bull...
>>>
>>> Everyone professionall enough reads the PDFs on a laptop or
>>> similar, not on the target system you are supporting, of course.
>>
>> I disagree with this. I've been writing code for a long time and it was
>> definitely easier and I still prefer having a manual open on the desk for
>> reference. Switching back and forth from where you are editing code to a
>> manual in PDF is extremely disruptive, and searching using Acrobat takes
>> longer than finding the information in a manual (even a very large one) if
>> you know the manual from years of using it. Paper manuals are a clear win
>> on this alone. I like having a full set of printed doc around and I prefer
>> real books as well.
>>
>
> I agree with that sentiment, but pdf is very convenient and takes up far less
> room than hard copy. Still have memories of 3 or 4 grey wall volumes open
> on the
> desk at once and it is very cumbersome and not ideal. For embedded work, the
> solution has been to ring bind just the register definitions for the
> various on
> chip peripherals, but it still takes up a lot of space. Perhaps a couple of
> hundred
> pages out of > 1000.
>
> The solution that would tick all the boxes for me would be a pdf reader with
> tabbing...

I get "tabbing" when opening multiple PDFs in Firefox.

> ...and bookmarks,

I can add "comments" to any PDF file. And then open a list of all comments
in the reader with direct linking to the page where I put the note.
It works as a bookmark and a written note-to-myself at the same time.

Any user-added comments are saved back into the PDF and are available
next time it is opened. Works very much as sticking yellow "Notes"
into a paper manual for quick lookup later. It's both a page-marker
and you can make a personal note on it at the same time.

And you can send the PDF including your bookmarks and notes to
someone else *much* easier then sending a printed manual ! :-)

Below is an example PDF where I have set 5 bookmarks/comments.
It is regarding setting the analog functions of an I/O pin
on a Microchip PIC microcontroller, but it could be about
anything, of course. :-) :

Use View => Comments => Notes (or similar, I have a Swedish
version of the Reader) in Acrobat Reader.

http://jescab2.dyndns.org/pub_docs/41262e.pdf

Regards,
Jan-Erik.


  as per Firefox, to enable moving from sparse matrix
> style
> page to page with a single mouse click...
>
> Regards,
>
> Chris