> documentation format ? I admit that while I like HTML it does look > rather clunky next to a polished PDF file. Trouble is, I don't know how > to format for PDF. So, what format would you prefer ? lots of ways to do this. Heres one totally biased opinion. For speed, i wont justify anything - ask if neccessary. so wheres this stuff gonna end up? If the web is the primary medium, then imo you must use html. Pdf is a print format. There is no real reason for a pdf to look better than an html document. Ok, there is the issue of fonts, pdf giving the oportunity for the author to embed his choice of font. Html alllows the user to specify the font to his taste, but unfortunately lots of people dont. If your html docs look bad, i highly suspect you dont have any good fonts on your system. There arnt that many good free fonts so you have to augment your installation with some others. Lots of web sites are designed for MSVerdana for example, so just installing that font will help a lot. an html wiz could do this totally in html and css but its not easy. A big png wrapped in html is probably an acceptable compromise. The png shouldnt be too big if it contains large areas of white. bitmap or vector editor? This job is half way between the two so you could go either way. Personally i would use an svg vector editor such as Sodipodi or Inkscape. I think this is probaly more flexible than using Gimp, eg if you want to make subtle changes. Currently displaying svg on the web is problematic, but hopefully it wont be within the next couple of years. In the meantime, export the svg to a png. should you need it, you can also export svg to pdf via the printing system, using the pdf filter, but personally i find this doesnt always work too well. Scripting? If you have a lot of these to do, you can script either gimp or svg for example. Its a non-trivial task, but it would be nice for example to automate the arrows, which is tedious to do manually. good luck! -- Tim Orford
