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In article <1992Oct5.190630.26539@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu> audley@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Christopher D Audley) writes:
>Why not just use PostScript.  Authors of documentation can use any word
>processing/page layout program they want and save it as PostScript.  Its
>not like people are typically going to want to be able to modify documentation
>they receive.  The original author can retain the document in whatever format
>he wishes for latter modification.  
>
>Every NeXTstep program has the ability to create PostScript files and every
>NeXT can read them.  Why does there seem to be resistence to using it as the
>standard format of documentation?

1) PostScript is difficult to search.

2) PostScript is difficult to view, even on a NeXT... Have you ever
actually tried to read a long PS document in Preview?  Or worse, tried
to read Page 50 of a 60-page document?  It's a nightmare.  Maybe it's
better in 3.0 (I haven't seen it yet), but in 2.1 you had to page
forward, wait for the page to image, and then page forward again, ad
nauseum.  And that's if you KNOW which page you want to read!

3) Has anybody used Digital Librarian with PostScript files?  I
thought I remembered seeing something about postscript in the indexing
filters, but I've never attempted to index .ps files.  I can't imagine
it's very pleasant...

When I want to read on-line documentation, I want to read *the document*,
not a *picture* of the document.

My vote is for rtfd.  It images quickly, is searchable, and is well
supported by most NeXT software.  Maybe somebody can write a smart
print filter that can add headers, footers, and page breaks for an
rtfd document...
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