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I'd like to introduce the presence of my company's technical manuals on our website and need some advice.
First, some background. I'm one of two tech writers for Sany America, makes heavy equipment similar to that of Caterpillar, Komatsu, etc. It's just getting started in the U.S. with a sales and engineering office in Peachtree City, a southwest suburb of Atlanta; a full-blown assembly plant is currently under construction a few miles down the road from my office. Even though we are a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sany Heavy Equipment in China, the plan is to truly "Americanize" Sany America with a great and useful website that includes all the bells and whistles needed to get across to our current and prospective customers that we want to be a truly American business venture.
While I'm not directly involved with the website -- except for occasionally spotting errors and such and reporting them to the powers-that-be -- I want to offer to our customers various forms of technical publication assistance including:
1. Downloadable pdf files of our tech pubs
2. The ability order printed&bound tech pubs
3. Videos of specific technical procedures
4. A method of suggesting improvements, reporting errors, etc. (i.e, customer feedback)
Our audience consists of equipment owners and operators who use our hardcopy materials in the field (noisy, rough and very busy construction sites); as such, our manuals are simply three-hole drilled, perfect-bound books with black text and line art graphics on white paper. At this time we don't see a need to do online (html) versions of our manuals because it is simply not practical for an operator to position a laptop in the cab (or elsewhere on the machine), then view and run through procedures. Videos might work to augment what's in a manual and be viewed in an office setting.
My question is really what process and software is / are required to go from digital video camera to online video? What digital editing software is required? (We currently use Windows Vista.) Do I simply upload a wav (or whatever) file directly to our website or is Flare or somesuch intermediate program required?
Obviously, I'm totally ignorant in this area, so any pointers, ideas, or suggestions about other websites or whatever is appreciated.
-- Kenpo in Atlanta
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