On 5/26/15 5:31 AM, Neil Gould wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:
On 5/25/15 12:25 PM, Neil Gould wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:
By compare, I meant doing it manually, reading the original first,
the suggested change(s) second. If I have two .doc files, I have
to have both of them open in separate windows, AFAIK. But if it's
an annotated PDF, the original and suggested phrases are displayed
in a single document.

There are programs designed for collaborative authoring that
automate the process and make it very easy to track revisions and
versions. FrameMaker is one that has had that ability since at least
version 3, which was before Adobe bought Frame, Inc. decades ago.
Using Word, PDFs and so on for version tracking is just another way
to make life difficult. ;-)

I don't doubt there are programs for that. The question is, is the
program of enough value to you to justify the purchase?

The short answer is, it depends. The cost of the software is fairly
irrelevant compared to the inefficiency of "hacked" methods. But, if the
document is small, not all that important, and/or has little impact on the
company, then it would be hard to justify any investment. OTOH, if the
collaborators are spread across the world and are creating documents of
value to the company, it's a no-brainer to require the use of such software,
as many companies do.

I think you've concisely hit the core difference of our viewpoints. :-)

We're viewing the issue of being able to put together "something" among
a group of people/businesses from different perspectives/needs.

You and Char are looking at it as how a large enterprise would do it,
say General Motors building a concept car using its worldwide resources.

I'm looking at it as a small local contractor who wants to bid a small
project, but doesn't have the in house skills needed, so needs to work
with other contractors in the area with equally limited resources. And
for the one or two yearly projects, can't justify the time and expense
of doing it the same as GM. Shoot, one of the may actually hate using
computers. LOL

I'm also considering this could even be planning the annual family
reunion. (I keep getting asked to go to those things, fortunately I
manage to avoid them for valid reasons. LOL)

The negative of your method is all users have to have the same
software, and absorb the same expense. With my way, users can select
whatever software they wish, and only have to be able to create a
basic PDF file, which can be done with a free printer driver in
Windows, or natively in OS X.

One hasn't had to have a printer driver for PDFs since DOS days, and then it
had to be a PostScript printer. There are many PDF writing apps available
that don't depend on an installed printer at all. Several of them are free.

By PDF writing apps, I assume you mean Adobe Acrobat type software,
albeit free? I've never looked for any of those, the PDF creation items
I've needed personally just don't justify the time and effort,
especially when an alternative PDF reader often installs a PDF printer
driver.

For me and my needs, the shortest path to a PDF file is a printer
driver. G



--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.8.5
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Thunderbird 31.5
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"