Ciscos new documentation format is unsearchable

[Oleg Serstjuk]

not sure where else to post or raise this

Cisco's  new interactive documentation cannot be searched, issues below - doc example

1. The browsers are unable to search within the collapsed fields unless you click into them which defeats the purpose of a search function

2. Using google to get your results - google is able to pick the info within the collapsed fields - when you click into the google link it brings you to the page with all the fields collapsed - so to find the reference from googles search you must go through each collapsible option to find the answer google found for you

3. There is no option to download the doc as a PDF

4. Each time an option is opened it collapses the previous one - 1. this juggles the page around if the last un-collapsed field had a lot of information, and a new one is open and you end up 5 pages down and away from where you were

5. there could be 20-30 collapsible fields in the doc - and you cannot un-collapse them all at once to try search through the full doc

Anyone have some workable workaround for this? This new design adds a huge amount of time to try find one small piece of info, your time is now wasted scrolling and collapsing fields

How can this be flagged with developers/designers of this great idea?

[Jaime Valencia]

So the print PDF option on the right hand side between the language selector and the Was this article helpful is not showing/working?

As to feedback, reach out to your SE/AM or use the "Contact us" after the article.

[Oleg Serstjuk]

the print PDF option is there - I used "Microsoft Print to PDF" option to convert it to a PDF - still same issue as the content didn't get converted properly to allow it to be searchable(the only text that can be searched is router configuration snippets within boxed windows)

Downloading a PDF(a searchable one) would be a workaround but a very poor one at best

As content linked from google search lands you on a fully collapsed page - in order to find anything you need to download the PDF and search again for what google already found for you(that's all well and good if the first doc you download is the one you need)

The same goes for images google finds of call flows etc you click the image you need and you back to a collapsed page looking for an image that google already found

Now something that used to take 40 seconds to find can take up to 10 minutes or more

It's a very backwards approach which makes documentation unfindable and unreadable

I doubt reaching out to our AM's would be very fruitful in getting the documentation format changed

[Anthony Holloway]

The move to help.webex.com was a mistake. It's like the people who made the decision to move are not people who live and breath documentation to do their jobs correctly. Not everything has to feel like a social media site. It's ok for technical web sites and technical documents to still exist.