RE: Help without manuals

[Darren Barefoot <Darren -dot- Barefoot -at- capeclear -dot- com>]

Hi,

This is a pretty common issue on the list...you may want to check the
archives (I'm certain that I've raised it before, for example).

As for the specifics of your question, I think hardware is a different ball
of wax than software. If you're a user working with HW, you need to be able
to refer to something, and unless all users have Palm Pilots or eBooks,
they're going to need a manual.

As for software, the trend away from printed manuals has been going on for
several years. I'm just implementing such a strategy for the second time
(that is, I'd already done it at another company about 18 months ago). The
first time I did it we received a little grumbling from customers, but we
did deliver the docs in both help system and PDF format. The approach--the
one you mention about going from help to PDF--that my team took is described
in an article at
http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/writingsamples/SingleSourcing.pdf. This
approach was pretty onerous. We undertook this route because we had
abandoned updating our Frame files months earlier, so our help system was
our most up-to-date source. We then had a requirement for a PDF version, so
we had no choice but to go help-to-PDF.

Thanks. DB.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Erika Yanovich [mailto:ERIKA_y -at- Rad -dot- co -dot- il]
> Sent: 05 November 2001 08:32
> To: TECHWR-L
> Subject: Help without manuals
>
>
> Dear collegues,
>
> Lately I see more and more companies (SW manufacturers) shipping their 
> products with on-line help only and no manual. You cannot even order 
> manuals separately, as they don't write/produce them anymore. Is this 
> common practice? Can we also stop writing them (we manufacture mostly 
> HW and some network management SW for the HW) without looking weird?
>
> Up to now we wrote manuals and then converted them to on-line help, 
> but I noticed from past discussions on this list that some of you do 
> it the other way around: write the help and convert it to manuals. 
> What are the advantages of this approach? Is it possible to convert 
> from webhelp to PDF?

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