PDF Help Truncation

[Richard]

Being from the old school, I prefer printed reference material while working at the computer. Therefore, I downloaded and printed the full thinBasic help manual for version 1.7.7.0. It was large. (I might be the only old-timer in the world who printed the whole manual). In several places I found that many lines of text were truncated on the right end of some of the lines, particularly in the examples sections of a lot of commands. In comparing this to the HTML version and the CHM version of the same help manual I found no truncations in the HTML or CHM versions. I used the latest version of Adobe PDF Acrobat Reader to print the manual and my printer was set at the widest possible margins.

I don't know what tool was used to prepare the PDF manual, but it obviously did not know the line length. I would think it desireable to make the PDF version agree with the HTML and CHM versions (just in case somebody else wants to print the thing!)

For an example, please see the examples for topic 8.35.65.16.6 (page 1051 in the PDF). I did not keep a complete list of all the pages where I found truncated lines but there were many. Sorry.

Could this be fixed for the next release?

[Michael Clease]

I agree the formatting is a bit all over the place but it is quite old so I am sure when Eros gets some time he will update it.

[ErosOlmi]

To create help files I use Help & Manual Pro: http://www.helpandmanual.com/

To be honest, when I created PDF help file I just click "Create PDF version" without checking very much the output. I mainly try to be precise as much as I can on CHM version. I never setup it to be precise as PDF. We created PDF version just because some users in the past asked for it.

I will attach PDF version of current thinBasic release in next update just to see how it is right now: there were a lot of changes in Help & Manual so maybe we will get some improvements "for free".

In any case writing documentation is the hardest part of thinBasic development. It takes more time than the language itself.
In those past years I have always tried to be as accurate as possible and have a documentation even more professional than many not free languages.
We know we can improve on this field but it takes a lot of time so it will happen step by step, do not expect big improvements but for sure expect I will try my best.

Eros

[ErosOlmi]

Please check post about current thinBasic Beta development phase.
I've added a link to a new PDF version of help file.

See if it is better or not.

Let me know.
Eros