Re: On line vs hard copy

["Susan W. Gallagher" <sgallagher -at- EXPERSOFT -dot- COM>]

Shlomo Ramon wrote:
>My apologies if this has been chewed on and regurgitated (which makes it kosher if it also  splits a hoof), but contientious lurking here for some time made me feel that hard copy documentation is going the way of dinosaurs to be replaced by online.
>Should this become a thread , I promise to summarize and post. If already beaten to death, could someone point me to a proper reference?
>TIA

Depends on who you talk to. Manufacturing folk and accounting folk
would dearly love that to be true. They don't like having to pay for
books. It increases the cost of goods, cuts into the profit margin,
ya know.

Customers, OTOH, mostly feel as if books are necessary -- particularly
for products with complicated procedures or complex concepts. And while
online doc use is increasing, there are still those stuborn users who
refuse to even acknowledge that online docs exist.

We doc folk walk the tightrope in the middle -- trying to minimize the
cost of manufacturing while still attempting to meet the customer's
needs. It's the "looking good doing it" that's the really hard part!
;-)

Sue Gallagher                  http://pw1.netcom.com/~gscale/susanwg/
sgallagher -at- expersoft -dot- com       http://www.expersoft.com/
     -- The _Guide_ is definitive.
        Reality is frequently inaccurate.

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