Jump to content

B777 Introduction Manual Table of Contents


GDex

Recommended Posts

I have a suggestion for PMDG concerning the B777 Introduction Manual.

 

 

 

This manual contains a huge amount of interesting and useful information. However, finding a specific piece of information is difficult due to the lack of a Table of Content.

 

 

 

Presuming that the original version of this document is written in MS Word, it would be a cinch to use a Heading Style for all the headings in the document, and then create a clickable Table of Content from these styles. Then when you create the PDF version of the document, make sure the clickable feature is carried over onto the PDF version.

 

 

 

This would make life much easier for the users, namely your customers. I know that it is possible to find specific information using the Acrobat “Find” feature, but it is much easier to access information directly from a table of content. In fact I am surprised that such a simple feature was not implemented a long time ago, coming from a company whose name includes the words “Precision Manuals”.

 

 

 

Incidentally, if PMDG decides to implement my suggestion, I would also suggest changing the page numbering format from “0.00.XX” to just “XX”. The 0.00 string provides no useful information at all.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Commercial Member

 

 


This manual contains a huge amount of interesting and useful information. However, finding a specific piece of information is difficult due to the lack of a Table of Content.

 

You do know that it's a bookmarked PDF, right?  When you open the file, the left side of Adobe's PDF reader has a few icons.  Click on the one that looks like an old-school book mark.

 

adobeicons.jpg

 

 

Click on topic of choice.

 

Done.


 

 


Presuming that the original version of this document is written in MS Word, it would be a cinch to use a Heading Style for all the headings in the document, and then create a clickable Table of Content from these styles. Then when you create the PDF version of the document, make sure the clickable feature is carried over onto the PDF version.

 

All of the headings are a heading style (note how they're all in some organized structure and have similar formatting by level.  This is also how the PDF got its bookmarked feature.

 

 

 


Incidentally, if PMDG decides to implement my suggestion, I would also suggest changing the page numbering format from “0.00.XX” to just “XX”. The 0.00 string provides no useful information at all.

 

It does, actually.  It's part of a standard technical document numbering system.  It follows many of the technical documents out in the aviation realm (have a look at the FCOMs that came with it, and you'll recognize the structure).  It certainly doesn't detract from the idea of finding a page, either, so I'm not sure what the issue is here.

Kyle Rodgers

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Kyle,

 

I had not noticed it was a bookmarked PDF. Thanks for letting me know.

 

On page numbering, I know it is  a standard technical document numbering system, which goes back to the days of the typewriter, when you would not wish to retype 275 pages because you inserted a new page after page 2! However in the case of the Introduction Manual, it is standalone so I don't see the need for 0.00 which would imply there might be a 1.00 section further down. I just thought if PMDG decided to insert a ToC, it would be easier to do it without the 0.00 which repeats on every page of the document and is totally redundant. However it's no big deal.

 

Gaetan

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Commercial Member

 

 


I had not noticed it was a bookmarked PDF. Thanks for letting me know.

 

Honestly, a ToC would be a lot more visual, particularly for those of us who are used to the more "old school" approach of looking for one (whereas the "new school" would go looking for something like the PDF bookmark function).  It would allow people to use one or the other, at little to no more effort, since as you mentioned, the heading style already manages this, and there's a Word function to drop in a ToC without much extra effort (other than adjusting the pagination for it).

 

As far as the numbers go, I don't see a need to change it.

Kyle Rodgers

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Tom Allensworth,
    Founder of AVSIM Online


  • Flight Simulation's Premier Resource!

    AVSIM is a free service to the flight simulation community. AVSIM is staffed completely by volunteers and all funds donated to AVSIM go directly back to supporting the community. Your donation here helps to pay our bandwidth costs, emergency funding, and other general costs that crop up from time to time. Thank you for your support!

    Click here for more information and to see all donations year to date.
×
×
  • Create New...