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This is what contracting firms are for. You can simply pay an outside firm
to do the formatting work. We aren't talking about high-level help, not
under the deadline you cite. For drudgework like fixing formatting on a
document and "slapping it online" (as opposed to making a well-planned help
system), there is no reason you can't get a contractor to do the work for
you.
As far as budgeting, figure out how much you cost the company (multiply your
salary by 1.4) and guess how long it will take you to do this job (double
the number of hours the contracting company gives you, because you will have
a learning curve and they probably are doing much of this stuff with
automated macros or using someone who has done this a zillion times and is
super-fast). You can easily prove to your company that it is cheaper and
faster to take a sub-contractor.
Rebecca Rachmany
Commercemind
PO Box 920, Kfar Saba 44109
972-9-7642000 x217
Mobile: 050-900600
rebecca -at- commercemind -dot- com
>I have a new assignment: "Do a context-sensitive HTMLHelp system for
>Product X [an automated medical device used in hospital
>operating rooms].
>The 400-page user manual needs to be in HTML, too. We need a working
>prototype of both, complete enough to satisfy the FDA, for the next
>product
>build on Thursday afternoon."
