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Re: st: PDF Stata 8 manuals


From   David Airey <[email protected]>
To   [email protected]
Subject   Re: st: PDF Stata 8 manuals
Date   Mon, 14 Jul 2003 21:20:57 -0500

Statalisters

In December Bill Gould wrote concerning non-paper Stata documentation as
given below. He states "I suggest we postpone this discussion until you
can see exactly what I'm talking about, and then reopen the discussion
and the relative merits of PDF versus SMCL, how to charge, etc."

Perhaps now would be a reasonable time to pick up this discussion again.

The online help for graphics is helpful. I do, however, find it rather
hard to read. Is there any way to increase the point size on Stata
interactive help? Having a CD with pdf documentation would be very
convenient. Providing an inexpensive GradPlan for students who wish to
buy a CD would increase Stata's attractiveness as a teaching tool.

What are other listers thoughts on this topic?

Bill Dupont

I very much like the graphics introduction, with hyperlinked examples. I'd pay to have the full text documentation implemented in similar fashion, but as carefully done as the hard copies. I'd also pay to have the documentation in full, hyperlinked PDF. In the end, I would probably use the viewer help significantly more than the PDF, and I doubt I would use the PDF significantly more than the hard copies, even though with a PDF view you can make it your full screen (theater view) which is the easiest way to read on computer monitors. But I guess it would take just as much effort to make a substantially linked PDF document as it would a hyperlinked SMCL help system, hence Bill's point? A flat PDF is OK, and perhaps a lot more convenient for those teaching.

-Dave

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