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Subject:What to put online From:Carl Stieren <stieren -at- DEV -dot- SIMWARE -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 19 Sep 1994 14:23:48 -0400
Like many companies, Simware is moving toward more online
documentation and less hard-copy docs.
For REXXWARE 1.2, a programming language and job scheduler for
Novell NetWare LANs, we published the three-volume programmer's reference as
hard copy, and published the 70-page REXXWARE Getting Started manual as both
a Windows help file and a printed spiral-bound 8 x 5 book.
We are considering what to do in future releases. Could we satisfy
all or most of our customers by providing the 900 pages of the programmer's
guide as strictly online? It would make searching for a function much
quicker, but are programmers still clutching their printed manuals and not
letting go?
Who else is scaling down - or phasing out - hard copy? What are you
choosing to keep in hard copy?
And finallly, what about those users who want hard copy? Does
anyone else keep their master document
as a ROBOHELP Word for Windows .doc file and then generate hard copy from
that? If so, how do you do it?
Carl Stieren.................Technical Writer.................Simware, Inc
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I write documents for, but do not speak on behalf of Simware.