Re: Reprinting a manual before new software version

[Rowena Hart <rhart -at- XCERT -dot- COM>]

Darren,

This seems like more of a product management/marketing
conundrum than a problem with your documents, which you
are probably aware of already.

Companies usually, from what I've seen and heard, do not
ship a product with new functionality or features under the
same version number for the very reason you stated: if
existing customers get wind of it they start shouting down
the line to the nearest sales rep demanding a free upgrade.
Poof, there go the company's profits.

That said, if your managers and marketeers are, ahem,
foolish enough to ship a new product using an old version
number, you will have to figure out some way to document
the new features and functionality.

I would recommend that you reprint and ship the OLD
document (the one that existing customers have) along
with technical notes, readmes, PDFs, or "addendum"
documentation for the new features and functions.

The rationale for this is that you want to maintain the
appearance that no major changes worthy of an upgrade
have been made to the product. (Which is, of course,
a money-losing attitude.)

Shipping an old doc is only possible if you use some
kind of revision control system and can reprint the
original x.0 documentation. If you overwrote the x.0
documentation files you will have no choice but to ship
the new documentation. (You didn't mention this as
being a problem in your original post, but I have heard
of this happening.)

Hope this helps,

Rowena

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Rowena Hart   Technical Writer

Xcert International Inc.
1001-701 West Georgia Street  Phone:  1 (604) 640-6210
Vancouver, BC, Canada V7Y 1C6  Fax: 1 (604) 640-6220
Web: http://www.xcert.com    E-mail: rhart -at- xcert -dot- com

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