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Subject:Re: Thoughs on reproducing what's on screen From:John Posada <jposada01 -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:Jan Stanley <janron -at- concentric -dot- net>, TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Fri, 1 Oct 1999 10:18:44 -0700 (PDT)
I'll go one further and for a minute, I thought he was
at my old contract the situation was so similar to
mine.
Note that this works if the document is also available
electronically, either through PDF or help on CD or
online.
Create your document with the reduced or cropped
report, and make the cropped report linked to the full
size uncropped version either on the CD or better yet,
online as a web link. They can view the
reduced-information versin and if they need to see the
full-detailed version, just click on it.
A big advantage to this is also, that as the software
evolves, you may create additional boilerplate forms.
Instead of creating a new verison of the document, you
place two links:
- Click here to view new forms
- Click here to download new form templates
The second link is I'll assume that each of your
reports uses a template file. Instead of waiting to
send out new forms until a new release, they can be
downloaded whenever appropriate.
Another alternative is that maybe there are 3 or 4
primary reports and either the rest are seconday, or
based on a design similar to the primary reports. Only
reproduce the primary reports in the document and for
the secondary, just a description.
> Sean isn't anxious to reproduce 35 standard reports
> in a manual.
>
> Sean, I agree that it seems redundant to include
> copies of the
> same reports that users would see on the screen, but
=====
John Posada, Merck Research Laboratories
Sr Technical Writer, WinHelp and html
(work) john_posada -at- merck -dot- com - 732-594-0873
(pers) jposada01 -at- yahoo -dot- com - 732-291-7811
"The art of creating software that is usable by individuals is a communication skill. It is not a programming skill."
--Bill Atkinson, creator of MacPaint and HyperCard
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