Steven Black responds to my earlier posting on “White Papers as PDF” with this pointer to Jakob Nielsen’s site: “Thumbs down, Ted. Here’s why: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030714.html”
I agree with Neilsen’s thesis that PDF is not a legitimate format for web pages, and that they are awkward to manipulate. As an experienced PDF author and reader, I have become accustomed to some of the idiosyncracies and appreciate some of the features. For the general public, they are a frustration.
I was looking at a painless and quick way of getting white papers up on the web, suitable for download. They print prettier that way, but they are not web pages. Perhaps I should offer both choices for those who want to read online, and for the search engines to pick up.