Hard Copy Manuals: Who does layout?

[Kathleen Padova <kpadova -at- ASICENTRAL -dot- COM>]

Hello Tech Whirlers,

I need a bit of backup for a weird situation that evolved at work.

Background (way more than you need):

There are two tech writers in our mid-size company. For some reason
all of our user manuals were written in MS Word. Both of us wanted to
switch to a DTP program but there hadn't been much time in between
project to research all the options properly.

We researched and compared Framemaker, Word, Quark and Pagemaker. He
had never used Frame, Pagemaker or Quark before. I have lots of
experience in Quark and Pagemaker and want to migrate to Framemaker.

I helped his research with my own experience plus the opinions of
other experienced professionals (Um... that would be youse guys)

He felt that using a combination of Word and Pagemaker would be the
best for our situation and I agreed.

My company is a member of the Adobe Developers Association and there
is some kind of program where we can get Adobe products kinda cheap.

Problem:

My supervisor was talking to his supervisor about our desire to switch
to a more useful tool for our hard copy documentation. The department
supervisor's response was that we (the tech writers) should just write
the text in Word and then hand the document over to our design
department for layout and formatting in Quark. He also felt that the
tech writers shouldn't be wasting their time learning DTP programs to
perform a task (DTP) that tech writers shouldn't be doing.

After I peeled my eyebrows off the ceiling, I calmly explained that
this was not the alternative I would have suggested.

1. I believe that the layout and presentation of the information I
write is part of my responsibiliy as a technical communicator. I
have _always_ designed the layout of my manuals.

2. The compressed time frame we always work in, does not give the
design department time to layout our document and then deal with last
minute program changes.

3. The design department is comprised of very talented artists and
designers who communicate ideas _graphically_. These folks come up with
wonderful UI graphics for our software, beautiful brochures, elegant web
pages and make my manuals look even more professional with fabulous
covers. That doesn't mean that they should have to format and layout text.

4. The person doing the layout isn't familiar with the content and will
not know if certain text should appear with a graphic or other text on the
same page and won't know if text got lost in the import. So, the technical
writer will have to proof the final document. And if there are any text
changes, who is going to make them? The graphic artist or the writer? I
should also mention that the designers all use Macs and we use PCs.

5. I already know Pagemaker and my coworker has been able to pick it up
rather quickly.

6. I like to steal from other manuals I've written. Many times I will take
a document in it's final layout, make a few changes and voila - instant
user's guide. Every time we produce a user's guide, it will have to go
through the same conversion process through the design department.

However, our Design Department Director is only working 12-15 hours a day.
I don't think she has enough to do. :)



I plan to go through the list archives and search for all the arguments
for/against DTP programs and Word.

What I'd like to know, from those of you in mid to large size companies,
who does the layout of your hard copy manuals? Do you have a dedicated
desktop publisher? Do you, the writer, do it yourself?

Sorry this took so long to get to the actual question, but if any of you
have gone though a similar experience and have advice about any part of
it, I'd love to hear it.

I don't want to clutter up the list too much (gotta save space for the
in-office signs :) so please email responses to kpadova -at- millstar -dot- com


Thanks!!!

Kathleen Padova
Millstar Electronic Publishing Group
kpadova -at- millstar -dot- com

** My ranting and raving, not Millstar's*****

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