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Wow! Lots of interesting ideas and questions. Let me take a stab
at a few.
>Technical support wants to put our manuals on the Web with HTML.
>For optimal usability, we need to redesign and rewrite the
>paper docs. It is also important for Tech Pubs to maintain
>version and content control.
Is this really for on-line documentation, or electronic distribution?
If you're going to the web (or other on-line service such as a BBS)
primarily for easier, quicker, and cheaper distribution, I'd suggest
using Acrobat. If your users, are going to access your docs, then print
them out and bring the printout with them on a service call, it may
be important to maintain your formatting and doucment appearance.
>The field technicians are interested in having maintenance
>manuals on CD-ROM or on the Web so that they do not have to
>carry 40 pounds of docs to a customer site.
CDs are nice, but they present some of the same problems as paper
documents do: they're not very dynamic. I guess it really depends on
how quickly you update your docs.
+---------------------------------------------------------+
Rick Sapir Gilbarco, Inc.
Technical Communicator Greensboro, NC
Rick_Sapir -at- gilbarco -dot- com
+---------------------------------------------------------+
DISCLAIMER: Speaking for no one but myself.
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