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-----Original Message-----
From: Geoff Hart
Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009 3:23 PM
To: TECHWR-L Writing; Anne Woolson
Subject: Digital delivery of documentation?
>> If you're just trying to shift the printing costs to the
>> customer, without compensating them for this by reducing
>> the price, then by all means produce a printable PDF and
>> see if you can hire Nancy Allison to convince your
>> customers that this is a good thing. <g>
>>
In places where the docs have been delivered "all-digital" to customers,
I found the a quick little 1 or 2 page document that highlights some of
the way to use PDFs and Acrobat to get the most of the documentation
(explain the bookmarks pane, how to search, how to print ranges of
pages) can go a long way towards getting customers that are actually
excited about the change.
At the current-but-soon-to-be-former gig, we distribute a CD that
contains the documentation, in PDF format that can be printed on 8.5 x
11 paper if you so choose (and I know I personally would never want to
thumb through our two volume, 600+ page software manual to find the one
thing I was looking for). There is an installer on the CD that pretty
much just copies over the documentation library (library index is also a
PDF, linked to all the other PDFs) so you don't need to do looking for
"that darned doc CD" when you actually need something off of it. We
also provide access to the documents on a customer website.
- V
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