Re: Digital delivery of documentation.

[Peter Neilson <neilson -at- windstream -dot- net>]

I just consulted with a "customer," my wife. She says that she greatly 
prefers hardcopy for equipment, because she puts her own little bookmark 
tabs on all the pages that have items of special interest. She did that 
for her HP gas chromatograph.

Whether it's possible to do that or not with a given electronic format 
is beside the point. She wants the hardcopy.

I agree with her. Sometimes I find that I need to look at four or five 
portions of an automotive shop manual simultaneously. "Oh," you'll say, 
"just bookmark the pages in the PDF or HTML." But that does not quite 
help. I want to look at the drawing on page 8-4 and compare it with the 
drawing on 11-73 while gazing at the engine on my truck. I do not want 
to drop my flaptop computer into the engine, or (for that matter) touch 
a flaptop with my greasy paws.

Additionally, if you're flipping back and forth between portions of a 
PDF doc that look similar, it can be hard to ascertain that you returned 
to the place you wanted, and not to another page that's almost the same.

I suspect that if properly polled, the people who use the manual will 
opt for the printed copy. This means actually asking the folks with the 
grease on their paws.
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