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Subject:RE: user expecttations - web-based help From:Erika Yanovich <ERIKA_y -at- rad -dot- com> To:"McLauchlan, Kevin" <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com>, Keith Hood <bus -dot- write -at- gmail -dot- com> Date:Thu, 3 Jul 2014 07:13:32 +0000
Printable versions are not an option as we add more and more videos to our manuals.
-----Original Message-----
From: McLauchlan, Kevin [mailto:Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com]
Sent: 02 July, 2014 19:59
To: Keith Hood; Erika Yanovich
Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: user expecttations - web-based help
I agree with Keith... though, I suppose it depends on the product and market and audience.
We switched away from PDFs to WebHelp, and still had lots of customers asking if they could have a printable version.
So, we're back to single-sourcing both Web/HTML5(-ish) Help and PDFs, with a home page in the distributed doc-set that lets the customer view either way, or save/print the various PDFs.
Many prefer the PDFs because they can print out and annotate, etc.
Many prefer the HTML because it allows search across the whole doc set, while PDF docs are searchable just within each doc.
Possibly, Flare has a way to make the PDF set searchable across docs? We haven't gotten around to that, yet. Our preference is to never do any post-processing that is not fully scriptable.
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Doc-To-Help 2014 v1 now available. SharePoint 2013 support, NetHelp enhancements, and more. Read all about it.
