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I also work for a telecom company that uses many other companies in our
product. We have an understanding (at a top level, kinda President/CEO to
President/CEO) with the companies that we use/source applications and code
from. I often "repurpose" entire sections out of their manuals and assorted
documentation. Being the kind of bloke I am, I always feel a need to rewrite
other peoples stuff to match my style of writing, or the style/tone of the
manual I am updating.
As a lone technical writer I get to fight the good fight and am constantly
trying to push for less and less individual manuals. I have been where many
of my readers are now, and I always hated it when it took me three or four
different manuals to answer one question. I prefer one document that has all
the information organized in it.
As far as format goes, we technical writers are expert, or soon become
expert, in culling information from all sorts of formats and
using/converting that stuff into the format we have chosen. For me that
would be FrameMaker and Word. So when I get a document/file from another
company in pdf, Interleaf, WordPerfect, text, etc., I now, or learn how to
convert it to what I need. I would not worry what format you select. I think
the important thing here is that you create the best documentation you know
how to create. Do not worry too much about the next poor bloke who will have
to reuse your stuff. trust that we technical writers are pretty darn
resourceful. We will figure it out.
And no, I do not slap a cover on somebody else's manual.
Hope this helps.
Barry Kieffer
Senior Technical Writer
World Wide Packets
Beaverton, OR
barry -dot- kieffer -at- wwp -dot- com
503.748.0544 http://www.wwp.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Margaret Smith
Do companies still just slap their own covers on OEM manuals? What are
your various experiences, war stories, preferences when you get to deal
with OEM documentation?
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