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As a telecommuter in another country, remote reviewing is all I do/get.
Acrobat is a frequently used tool. Using it effectively is not
difficult - you only need to know about the annotation tools, and go. I
find people love highlighting, drawing circles, etc. And you can save
off the comments and just return them. Depending on the size of your
review team, it may be worth the investment.
Another low-budget approach is to use plain old email:
pp 722, Reviewing Remotely for Cheap, 4th para - you forgot to mention
that reviewers need computers before they can use email.
You could use autonumbering to provide numbers for each paragraph or
heading - then turn it off for the final production of the book. Since
you're sparkling and new, you can set up the process as you like. Not
recommended for editorial review, but for technical review it works
fine. Maybe you can buy Acrobat for the editors and executives, and use
email for the technicians. Everybody should have Acro Reader, though -
that would be the way to distribute the docs themselves.
Personally, I don't like to receive hundreds of pages by fax... I don't
see how fax can work except in extreme situations where only a few pages
need actual scribbles. You can still send out PDF, but receive the
fax... Costs less. I also like to focus my reviews for the technicians
- I know such and such a developer is only interested in the "Expensive
Review Methods" sections, so I save out a scratch version for her, PDF
it, and off it goes. And I have rarely encountered problems of
reluctant reviewers. Just lucky? Perhaps, but if everybody is
committed to making an excellent product, the reviews come in on time.
If somebody isn't committed, then you've got bigger problems than doc
reviews. That's just been my experience.
--
Chris Despopoulos, maker of CudSpan Freeware...
Plugins to Enhance FrameMaker & FrameMaker+SGML http://www.telecable.es/personales/cud/
cud -at- telecable -dot- es
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