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>
> I am trying to convince a small, inexperienced documentation team that it
> is a bad idea to simply print out the online help files to produce
> manuals.
>
Don't worry about differences in tone and content. Keep it simple. Point
out that your online help has links to other topics, either "click here"
type links or those nifty underlined headings. They also have popups. If
you just print these out they will make zero sense.
My suggestion is to just print out a couple of the online help topics that
contain multiple links and show them to your team. Ask them what they'd
think if they tried to use a book that included such gems as "click here to
view information on metrics." Or a list of linked related topics. Clearly,
editing is needed.
You can then modify the discussion to the far more reasonable topic of "how
much editing is required of the online help to get a sensible user's guide
from it?"
(and yes, I have a user's guide that includes "click here" notations - and
it was for a Help Authoring Tool...)
Paul Strasser
Windsor Technologies, Inc.
2569 Park Lane, Suite 200
Lafayette, Colorado 80026
Phone: 303-926-1982
FAX: 303-926-1510
E-mail: paul -dot- strasser -at- windsor-tech -dot- com
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
A new book on Single Sourcing has been released by William Andrew
Publishing: _Single Sourcing: Building Modular Documentation_
is now available at: http://www.williamandrew.com/titles/1491.html.
Help Authoring Seminar 2003, coming soon to a city near you! Attend this
educational and affordable one-day seminar covering existing and emerging
trends in Help authoring technology. See http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l2.
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