Cohousing-L Mailing List: Document format (was RE: sample document library: laying the groundwork)

[Rodney Elin (crm114]

>> One more note, about format.  I understand why it is 
>probably preferable to 
>> have the library in PDF or text rather than Word.  But i 
>think a lot of 
>> community policies are currently available in Word, and not 
>everybody is 
>> set up to convert from Word to PDF, and if they go to 
>text-only then they 
>> lose the formatting that makes the document more readable.
>Actually, converting a Word Document to PDF is pretty easy. If you 
>install a program that will covert a Word Doc to PDF, all that it 
>entails is selecting "PDF" under the "Print" option instead of 
>choosing 
>your printer. You then get to name the file and where to save it, just 
>as you would with the Save As option.

I do quite a bit of work with community advocacy and the people with whom I
work regularly run into format issues with documents being shared. 

Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) has many advantages with it's
portability and universal features, but the very nature of a PDF file makes
it impossible to access for anyone with any sort of visual impairment. It
seems that I am regularly downloading PDF files and converting them into a
text based version so that they can be read by the people with whom I am
working.

PDF is a great format for ensuring that the formatting of a document it
retained when being transferred between dissimilar systems, but if we want
to create a document library that is accessible to the greatest number of
people, then it should be kept at least in a text or word processing format
IN ADDITION TO any PDF storage.

A further problem with PDF distribution is that opening a PDF document
requires installing and loading a separate software package on an
individual's personal computer. Since PDF is not native to any major
computer system or OS, it can take time and resources and slow down the
process of downloading what could otherwise be a simple one or two page text
(or HTML) document.


~Rodney