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  • From: "David R. Matusiak" <matusiak AT speakeasy.net>
  • To: InterNetWorkers <internetworkers AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Modern documentation solution?
  • Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 12:43:54 -0700 (PDT)


hey Michael --

this seems to be an issue facing many people/organizations that serve up
documentation (at least, more than the usual web content). i don't really
have a
good answer, mostly because i am looking for the same.

many have suggested DocBook. it looks like a quite useful tool and the
learning
curve does not seem to be as bad as some other solutions. i don't know if i'm
ready for that level of markup, but the options are pretty much:
1. do it now
-or-
2. do it later

now may be more advantageous. also, as far as the .pdf option - have you
tried
saving "Print Previews" under Mac OSX? not that i am trying to offer a
platform-specific solution to your problem, but my experience has been quite
good with this method. (for those that don't know, you can now turn anything
into a .pdf automatically with Mac OSX - nice feature).

this may not be feasible if you have to crank out a few hundred pages of user
manual, but i'm sure there is some macro/applescript/etc to assist with
automation. good luck with the conversion. let us know how it goes!
dave m.
___ _ _____ . ....
m a h t o o z e e a c k a t s p e e k e e z e e d o t n e t
------ / / ......... . . .

On Thu, 11 Jul 2002, Michael Czeiszperger wrote:

> I'm trying to figure out where to go with our ducumentation strategy and
> was
> hoping to get some advice from the list.
>
> The current situation is we sell an application which people download from
> our
> web site and install. All of the documentation is on the web site, and the
> Help menu just brings up a browser pointing to the manual on the web site.
>
> We've gotten a fair number of complaints about this setup from:
>
> * People in foreign countries with lousy internet connections
> * People don't like reading anything on the web
> * People who claim to be using the product on computers without internet
> connections (which is hard to believe given that its a web server testing
> product)
>
> I've tried just converting the web part of the manual to PDF, but it just
> doesn't look that great, and certainly doesn't look like a printed manual,
> which is what people seem to be expecting.
>
> On the plus side, there's lots of other companies, like VMware that have
> online manuals only, and I for one really like being able to search the web
> site and find help.
>
> Is there a solution that would allow us to both maintain the HTML-based web
> pages and a printed version, and perhaps another version embedded with the
> product (like JavaHelp) maybe?
>
> I've looked at RoboHelp, but the program appears to be pretty junky, and
> was
> wondering if there are any alternatives?
>
> Thanks!
>
> --
> Michael Czeiszperger
> czei AT webperformanceinc.com





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