MSFT KB articles are not constructed for printing/off-line viewing. 
Author Message
 MSFT KB articles are not constructed for printing/off-line viewing.

I doubt that this is the right newsgroup in which to post this question, but
I don't know where else to go.

For quite some time, at least since I've had IE 6, I see an ever increasing
number of error messages when accessing an article in MSFT's KB. Not to
mention, I often find articles that I've saved which cannot be opened in IE,
but can be opened with Front Page.

The errors almost always point to a line in the HTML source that is in a
Javascript relating to cookies.
While those scripts may (or may not) be "useful" for some unknown purpose, I
feel that the point of the KB articles is to provide us with info.

Most of  the time, it is either necessary, or more convenient, to download
the KB article for viewing offline, e.g., to extract/study code included in
the article.

The inclusion of those Javascripts just gets in the way.

Not to mention, I cannot even properly print some articles, likely due to
some embedded scripts, e.g., articles Q292491, Q218861, and Q290576. Much of
the text gets lost when printing.

Any articles posted must be optimized for offline printing, instead, they
seem to be "optimized" for on screen viewing, which is not at all useful for
many articles which must be studied/used off-line.

One solution is to do what a number of other sites do, i.e. add a button to
produce a printer friendly version. Heck, I'd make such a button the default
if it were a browser option.

P.S. The above refers to the KB, but analogous comments could be made about,
e.g., the MSDN articles. In some cases, there is not even a Save As option
for those, so I end up Viewing Source and saving in Notepad, then renaming
the file as .htm. That's ridiculous.

--
http://www.*-*-*.com/ ; Programming and support for  Word macros,
including converting from WordBasic to VBA; Technical reviewing; Standards;
Product functional/design/specifications
------------------------------------------------



Tue, 01 Feb 2005 00:26:03 GMT  
 MSFT KB articles are not constructed for printing/off-line viewing.
Upon further investigation, I am noticing that the troublesome articles use
very incorrect HTML code.
For example <P> tags are missing all over the place.

See, e.g., Q245115.

MSFT should not put ANY  articles on their web site that cannot pass muster
with HTML verifiers such as HTML Tidy.

--
http://www.standards.com/; Programming and support for  Word macros,
including converting from WordBasic to VBA; Technical reviewing; Standards;
Product functional/design/specifications
------------------------------------------------

Quote:
> I doubt that this is the right newsgroup in which to post this question,
but
> I don't know where else to go.

> For quite some time, at least since I've had IE 6, I see an ever
increasing
> number of error messages when accessing an article in MSFT's KB. Not to
> mention, I often find articles that I've saved which cannot be opened in
IE,
> but can be opened with Front Page.

> The errors almost always point to a line in the HTML source that is in a
> Javascript relating to cookies.
> While those scripts may (or may not) be "useful" for some unknown purpose,
I
> feel that the point of the KB articles is to provide us with info.

> Most of  the time, it is either necessary, or more convenient, to download
> the KB article for viewing offline, e.g., to extract/study code included
in
> the article.

> The inclusion of those Javascripts just gets in the way.

> Not to mention, I cannot even properly print some articles, likely due to
> some embedded scripts, e.g., articles Q292491, Q218861, and Q290576. Much
of
> the text gets lost when printing.

> Any articles posted must be optimized for offline printing, instead, they
> seem to be "optimized" for on screen viewing, which is not at all useful
for
> many articles which must be studied/used off-line.

> One solution is to do what a number of other sites do, i.e. add a button
to
> produce a printer friendly version. Heck, I'd make such a button the
default
> if it were a browser option.

> P.S. The above refers to the KB, but analogous comments could be made
about,
> e.g., the MSDN articles. In some cases, there is not even a Save As option
> for those, so I end up Viewing Source and saving in Notepad, then renaming
> the file as .htm. That's ridiculous.

> --
> http://www.standards.com/; Programming and support for  Word macros,
> including converting from WordBasic to VBA; Technical reviewing;
Standards;
> Product functional/design/specifications
> ------------------------------------------------



Fri, 04 Feb 2005 02:27:13 GMT  
 
 [ 2 post ] 

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