Re: Updating Hard Copies of Existing Manuals

Subject: Re: Updating Hard Copies of Existing Manuals
From: gloria <gmedcalf -at- PRAIRIE -dot- LAKES -dot- COM>
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 08:37:44 -0600

>Agreed. Updating using the a b c d same page number
>is nothing but a headache.

I agree it is a headache, but when a company refuses to reprint the whole manual for every update, you have to do something. They had addendums before. Try finding information and try keeping track of information in a manual and three addendums.

The manuals I did were for a hobby product. The audience would have been more upset about the additional price charged for complete new manuals than the hassle of update pages. There was a large user base that only needed the update information.

>Speaking of numbering... how many of you use the
>i.e. ->1.1, 10.7 format? Just wondering. Any other
>numbering schemes out there better?

I am using this numbering scheme now (different company). I can see that it could help update numbering when not reprinting the whole manual, if the updates only affect a few sections and if the sections aren't long. This was not the case in the manuals mentioned above. The product had a command-driven interface. So, an alphabetical command references was a useful part of the manual and was quite long.

As a user, I think it is harder to find a specific page with this numbering (1.1, 10.7 format) than with 1-100 numbering.

>Pat Gantt ~ pagantt -at- worldnet -dot- att -dot- net =


gloria
gmedcalf -at- prairie -dot- lakes -dot- com

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