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Subject:Re: PDF v paper From:John Cornellier <cornelli -at- CLAMART -dot- SRPC -dot- SLB -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 16 Dec 1998 13:50:04 +0100
>Why is there a need for paper doc. to be shipped with a software product?
Short answer: Because we've always done it that way.
Long answer: People like books. Just look at the, er, semiotics: to be
"bookish", Gatsby and his uncut books, swearing on a bible, Shakespeare's
Quartos (Shakespeare's collected emails? I don't think so), to "throw the
book" at someone, to be in someone's "good books", etc. In other words,
books have a huge positive symbolic value.
I don't think I've ever heard any complaints about Windows having virtually
no paper documentation. Yet there's sure a market for tomes filled with
white space and screenshots. (The bewildered consumer, feeling helpless and
faced with a choice of otherwise identical books, takes the thickest one.)
A trivial snag to PDF usage is the A4/USLetter issue.
John "My Other Car's a Bookmobile" Cornellier
Paris
