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Speaking of reviewers and their, ahem, "corrections" (I prefer the word
"changes" for most markups, if only because in my mind, it's more
truthful), one of my irritants(?) is when you've talked to everybody and
their brother about the subjectmatter, thought you've got it pretty much
understood, and have finally routed the hardcopy draft for review and
the reviewer(s) still can't do their job correctly.
Just like your reviewers who take upon themselves to bloat the draft
with their markups, there's ALWAYS some smart-ass who can't or refuses
to add margin notes for me to work into the explanatory text. Noooo! He
writes, "Why?" or "How" next to something that I still have only a foggy
notion about. Hell, if I know "how" or "why" about every facet of the
product. And as much as I am able to learn concepts quickly about the
REAL hardware I document, some things I still don't understand
completely and rely on an engineer's explanation so I can reword it as
necessary and drop it into place.
I've rebuilt my share of automotive engines, replaced entire brake
systems (including master and wheel cylinders), did all kinds of things
like that, but transmissions, now they still baffle me. I drive a
standard shift car (for the enjoyment) and I know that trannys move
power from the engine to the drive wheels. But I still have a hard time
figuring out how many squirrels there are in those little cages they run
on to make it all work inside.<grin>
So could I explain all the intricacies of transmission interiors? Nope.
But can I use engineering drawings and interviews with SME's to create a
totally useful document for those who do tranny rebuilds? I can and I
have.
-- Ken in Atl
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+poshedlyk=polysius -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+poshedlyk=polysius -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of neilson -at- windstream -dot- net
Sent: Friday, March 09, 2007 10:32 AM
To: Martinek, Carla; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Changing progams to accommodate reviewers
Carla Martinek wrote...
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rebecca Fleischer
>
> >> At my last job, I used FrameMaker for years, but then the
> >> developers wanted our documentation converted to word to make it
> >> easier for them to do reviews.
>
>
> Oh, this is *such* a pet peeve of mine! I've run into this in the
> past where reviewers complain, "Why can't you write in Word like
> everyone else?"
One of the problems in writing in Word is that the reviewers feel they
should create the revised document for me. Instead of writing a note,
"Change fooby to Fooby throughout, and mark Foobymu as a trademark,"
they'll put a lot of effort into trying to *do* all that. Or sometimes
they'll have a 3 MB file of XML and stuff that contains 17 lines of info
that I'll actually need for the document. I'll get the doc e-mailed back
to me with the 3 MB inserted as an appendix, and my Outlook mailbox
overflows.
Multiply that by eight or ten reviewers for a document and four
simultaneous projects, and it's kind of obvious why I prefer the
comments not be included in the document file, especially if it's MS
Word and I'm working in a MS-only environment. "Merge" eight reviews? No
thank you, I'll *read* them and put the changes into my own unruined
copy of the document.
--Peter Neilson, wearing his brilliantly-colored Curmudgeon Hat
PS: I'm tempted to use the phrase "MS Word Considered Harmful" but I
notice that someone in Norway has already said it. Read http://grendel.no/misc/ms-word-considered-harmful.pdf if you don't mind
plowing through some Norwegian. His point of view seems to be that LaTex
produces better-looking Norwegian output, while mine (and a lot of youse
guys') is that it just ain't suited for tech writing.
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