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Subject:Really Short Runs From:/G=Mike/S=Christie -at- MHS-SUNALL -dot- ATTMAIL -dot- COM Date:Wed, 26 Oct 1994 18:00:34 +0000
Faith Weber asks about *really* short runs. Two months ago I shipped 20 copies
of a set of 3 manuals, last night I sent a manual to the printer that will be
16 copies, and in December we'll run about 30 of all 4.
- What kind of binding you use
3-Ring.
- Whether you ship individual documents or sets, and if you ship
sets, how you kit them (slipcase, just a shipping box, etc.)
Since this was a major upgrade, we just bought the customers new binders. We
use 2 binders: one for 3 of the
manuals (2 at about 250 pages, one about 90) and a second for one 500 pg
manual.
We inserted the manuals and tabs in the binders before we shipped. In
December we'll shipped shrink-wrapped updates
of the 4 revised manuals. We'll ship complete manuals, though we've done
change pages in the past and may do them
again. In the past, my predecessors never put anything on the page to
indicate it was a change page. That I would change.
(Of course, they also put the part number as a footer on each page, a
practice that still baffles me.)
- Whether you do your own shipping and inventory control, or another
department in your company does it, or your printer does it
Ourselves. Us. On this side of the Atlantic we have 1 HR/Accounting/Admin
person, 1 CM manager, 1 SysAdm,
10 developers, 2 QA people, 1 temp working with me (until Friday), and me.
That's it. The CM manager and I do it.
- What, if any, other binding/shipment/inventory options you've
looked into
None. In the quantities we run, and the size of the manuals it's the only
method that really makes sense.
However, I do use Docutech (diskette-->600 dpi Xerox output) which produces
very nice results and works well on both
short and medium runs. (Assuming you have a printer that really understands
how to use the equipment.)
Mike Christie
Technical Writer
Syntelligence Systems, Inc
Reply to:
mikec -at- syntel -dot- com
if you try to reply using header info,
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