RE: Previous, Next and Print buttons in Help

Subject: RE: Previous, Next and Print buttons in Help
From: "McLauchlan, Kevin" <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com>
To: Paul Hanson <phanson -at- Quintrex -dot- com>, TECHWR-L Writing <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2010 14:20:18 -0500



Paul Hanson asked:

> Are you talking about using a CSS file for "media=print" to
> create the "formatted-for-nice-printing" version? Have any
> CSS to share?

Nope.

I carefully leave that sorta stuff out of my WebHelp.

Having anything of the sort just reminds/encourages requests
for "a single printable version" of your Help.

The one-and-only time I tried to oblige such requests,
I got sucked into a morass of escalating requests to
"fix it so it is formatted properly and organized properly"...


Um, it's help. Each topic page is either a standalone entity
or a member of a topical cluster of pages. A page might be a
paragraph or it might be 31 paragraphs and a bunch of
embedded diagrams. Any given page might have multiple
instances of drop-down or expanding text (or text-and-graphics).
Any given sequence of instructions might:

a) proceed directly from step to step to the end

b) branch to alternate paths (of one or more steps) for
variant product versions or customer implementations

c) keep to a single path but skip over some steps that
describe optional config or features...

d) other.

Now, tell me how to make that generate a single PDF or
Word document that flows properly and understandably...
oh, and doesn't have a bunch of redundancy.



With that said, I'm ready to make happen whatever they
want to have happen if they are willing to throw money
at us for the privilege. On that point, I'm in violent
agreement with the Product Manager who said exactly
that when I said I'd need considerably more time on the
project schedule if we really wanted to please certain
parties.

- Kevin

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References:
Previous, Next and Print buttons in Help: From: Saunders, Ian
Re: Previous, Next and Print buttons in Help: From: Robert Lauriston
RE: Previous, Next and Print buttons in Help: From: McLauchlan, Kevin
RE: Previous, Next and Print buttons in Help: From: Paul Hanson

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