HTML Articles that Are Actually Decent

2011 May 7

Most scientific journals offer articles in HTML format, but the conversion is usually pretty poor — see, to pick a typical example, Wilms et al. 2007. The HTML version is definitely readable, but has some rough edges, and doesn’t really give you much of a reason to prefer it to the PDF version (if your PDF reader is any good).

Sometime recently the publishers of Annual Reviews revamped their website and clearly put some effort into doing a better job — for example, Morales & Wyithe 2010. The design is more attractive. The figures and references float, so you can go between them and the text more easily. Internal and external links are more pervasive, and content is offered in multiple formats, including figures as PowerPoint slides for the truly lazy talk-preparer. There are definitely quibbles one could offer, but the overall experience is much nicer than anything else that I’ve seen. A similar amount of effort has been put into the overall website, linking together all of the journals. It’s really nice to see.