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Subject:The demise of the printed manual? From:Warren_Singer -at- vocaltec -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 12 Apr 2001 11:18:46 +0200
My company is thinking of cutting down on costs by stopping the production
of printed manuals. How many of you work for companies that only provide
online documentation? (pdf format/html/online help). Is it acceptable in
today's market? Is it an acceptable practise in the Telecommunications and
carrier industry? I have heard that Cisco, for example, only provides
online documentation.
The alternative to the printed manual would be to rely solely on the PDF
files that are enclosed in the CDs that we ship with a new release. We
also have a password-controlled, Web-based Knowledge base, where customers
can download the latest documentation related to our products and
services.
I can see the following benifits of cutting down on printed manuals:
- Savings of 5-6,000 dollars per release (with 2-3 major releases per
year) = 10-18,000 dollars per year (for a company with sales of 20 million
per year).
- Savings of 2-3 weeks off production times, means more time to work on
the manuals before a release, manuals that are more up to date, and less
time spent on printing and production (an estimated cost-savings in
technical writing hours of about 2000 dollars per release)
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