AAIB reports now on PDF
 

Not sure I like the change the AAIB have made to their monthly bulletins. This months list is now only available as a 1.5Mb PDF. AAIB Bulletins for May Fine if you have a nice fat pipe to the net but a pain if you haven't.

Shame they didn't provide the old HTML format in addition to this.

-bcfc

Seems unnecessary if only plain text in the reports, but because the embed diagrams and tables in many of the reports I guess its easier for them this way... but certainly less convenient for us..!

I've emailed AAIB about this. Made a case for having both PDF and HTML reports availbable side-by-side.

Let the user choose.:ok:

They're just trying to keep you ambulance chasers away. ;)

QDM

Agree here, seems we are going backwards. The old HTML navigation was fine, why change?

I suspect the raw source info is done in Word (or similar) format and the HTM files were created from that. It is easier to distill the source into Adobe Acrobat and store using FTP:// than publish using *.htm formats (as they used to be). It would be interesting to hear why they have suddenly changed the process.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~derek/proon/cat.gif

Unfortunate double entendre on the file name too. "maybull" dot pdf. :)

I have just recevied an e-mail from the AAIB apologising about the PDF format saying "our old style should return around June/July time"

Nice to know the AAIB listen :)

BlueRobin - did the AAIB say why they'd changed from html to pdf in the first place, even if it is only a temporary measure? Can't help thinking of a phrase beginning 'If it ain't broke...'

And was I the only one to notice that the page references in the Contents of said May bulletin don't tie up with the page numbers later in the document?!

That aside...the AAIB do a brilliant job - power to their elbow.

Jimbo.

Best thing AAIB could do is to retain the existing format, make sure page numbers match on the PDF supplied alongside, and have a decent search facility on bulletins to allow rapid retrieval of reports based on date, a/c type and so on.

My 2p worth.

I think the new format is a massive improvement. Now you can browse everything that they reported on in the month while previously you had to click on a separate link for each incident, very tedious. The old way seems popular though. perhaps they could have both. Should not be any major extra work.

The really interesting question is whether the reports will get indexed by the search engines.

I think they should be, to make research easier. No pilot names are listed so there aren't any major privacy issues as for example there would be if G-INFO was getting indexed up!!

Its about to heat up here, good thing I like it hot...

Why all the whinging ? On their site, they say:

A free online PDF to HTML or text conversion service is also available at http://www.adobe.com/products/acroba...linetools.html


Of course, I haven't tried it, it may be rubbish, and right now, I AM on a nice fat pipe :-)

Okay kids, stop rocking the boat.

The reason given was that the Department (one assume Dept of Transport) is updating their websites, which includes the AAIB.

Have you thought your case through before blurting out an opinion?

The PDF is a good format, I'm not contesting that and could be supplied alongside the HTML version. However, HTML is still a more "open" format than PDF.

1.5meg PDF files take an awfully long time to load on a dial-up modem rather as opposed to HTML.

Linkability into each case doesn't happen

Search facility doesn't cover PDFs, so searching for past incidents and trends can't happen.

Some "mere" points on accessibility, a factor which all .gov.uk Government websites are committed to. Be that those with slow access, poor vision, deafness...

Although I can fully understand the problems for people with slow connections but being able to get the whole month in one go and read it at my leisure is a great benefit.

I fully support the wish for HTML presentation but it would be nice to keep the PDF available too.

And

I totally agree; I read all the bulletins each month and find it very time consuming to click on each link and copy and paste them in a single Word document for my files.