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I generally agree with Gene, and would add that the question does not have a single, simple answer. Several factors need to be considered:
-Will the company provide printed manuals, or will the user print his own PDFs? If the company is paying for printing, ROI changes dramatically.
-Does a training department rely on printed docs for training (and is the tech writing department given a budget to provide manuals that support training efforts)?
-How old is the target market? My dad (who is 80) would definitely need something that looks like a book. My son (who is 17) would definitely prefer easily searchable online help.
-Is the help primarily referential or procedural? If the user needs to work through complex procedures, online help might be a pain as the user would have to toggle between it and the application for every step (unless you can safely assume that he is running dual monitors). On the other hand, if the help is primarily referential, then toggling wouldn't be a problem and providing the superior search functionality of online help is a no brainer. For procedural help, another thing to keep in mind is that a decent online help system will enable you to print any given procedure (which eliminates the toggling problem).
-Will the tool or application be used in a cleanroom?
For software, I would argue that there is a good reason to include a PDF only if not including a one is a deal breaker.
Has anyone on the list felt the need to download a PDF for, say, Word, InDesign, or DreamWeaver? If you are using an older version of Frame, how often did/do you use the bundled, printed user guide?
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+lporrello=illumina -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+lporrello=illumina -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Gene Kim-Eng
Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 8:28 AM
To: dana -at- campbellsci -dot- com
Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: what doc formats do READERs want ?
As a user, I prefer the giant PDF for download and local use, but it's murder trying to read one online.
In my best of all possible worlds, there would be a context-sensitive/searchable OLH/HTML/e-reader/whatever version for online use with a link that says "To download as PDF click here."
Gene Kim-Eng
On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 8:10 AM, Dana Worley (MVP/JB)
<dana -at- campbellsci -dot- com>wrote:
> Who says we don't want giant PDFs? :-P
>
> Really, it depends upon the type of document. Help file for an
> application? No, I don't want a PDF, I want a well-designed, context
> sensitive help file. A complete reference manual for a product? If
> it's a large document, I LOVE having it in PDF format -- very easy to
> navigate, search, and scan.
>
> It's all about choosing the "right tool for the job", but without any
> idea of what the job is, I don't think the tool can be recommended.
>
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