Re: Docs on the Web

[John Posada <john -at- TDANDW -dot- COM>]

Kathy...

I'm currently working for a company that uses PDFs extensively
(thousands of them), for draft evalautions by developers on an intranet
and on CDRom for distribution.

Also, at my previous contract, I developed my own intranet and
introduced the practice of making documents available on an intranet. I
went through a whole discussion about this on this list about 10 months
ago.

Some things to consider:

"...a tutorial on Acrobat, yada, yada, yada."

Oh...you expect then to read intructions?  They won't read the
tutorial..they will call you...on the phone...or stop by your office. If
this is the first introduction of PDF to mainstream corporate, expect to
devote a large amount of time to hand holding. i.e., "I don't have the
software.", "I can't install the software cause I'm on NT and don't have
admin rights.", "The software doesn't get launched when I click on the
link." (be ready to show how to associate pluggins to the browser), "I
can't get the reader to find the attached catalog index.", "I'm on an
AIX workstation and I cannot find the right version.", etc.

Are you creating the catalog index to allow searching through multiple
PDFs in a batch? Be ready for the questions from those that don't know
about adding/associationg an index to the reader, getting the catalog
search pluggin or why they don't have the Catalog search button on the
Reader button bar (some people end up with several version of the reader
scattered throughout their disk).

How about security? Does your network security allow downloading PDF
files to the local machine?  Can everyone at all levels of the company
access the same documentation? Maybe you need a separate login just for
the documentation web site. I did to keep developer's documentation out
of the hands of the marketing people...don't want some of the internal
UNIX information being distributed to customers, do we.

These are just off the top of my head, but if you expect it (just like
anything) to be no-brainer, it will really catch you off guard. If you
expect it to bite you, you will be ready.

Kathy Ellis wrote:
>
> Folks:
>
> After much fancy tap dancing, I've gotten permission
> to put our doc set on the company website. Everything
> is in PDF format behind a firewall with indexes, a tutorial
> on Acrobat, yada, yada, yada.
>
> On the surface, this seems like a no-brainer, but I know
> from experience that no-brainers often have a lot hidden
> obstacles. Anyone have sage advice on what to watch
> out for or how to be the most efficient at managing this?
>
> Thanks is advance. You guys always have great ideas!
>
> Kathy
>

--
John Posada, Technical Writer
Bellcore, where Customer Satisfaction is our number one priority
mailto:john -at- tdandw -dot- com   mailto:jposada -at- notes -dot- cc -dot- bellcore -dot- com
phone(w) 732-699-3077    phone(h) 732-2910-7811
alpha-pager: 800-864-8444 pin 1857522  http://www.tdandw.com
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My opinions are mine, and neither you nor my company can take credit for
them.
  "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish,
and he will sit in a boat and smoke cigars all day."

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