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Subject:Online versus Paper -Reply From:Steve Christensen <STEVECH -at- WORDPERFECT -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 26 Sep 1994 14:26:12 -0600
Richard J. Lippincott wrote:
The online docs weren't that bad, when compared to others. But the
problem was the lack of detail. Later in the message, you asked if I
would have still bought the paper manual if I'd found the specific
information I wanted online. Yes, I would have.
Taking off my tech writer hat and putting on my user hat, my perception
is that the book will always contain more data than an online document.
(How many megabytes of hard drive space would that book take up,
anyway?)
========================================
I would agree that this is one of the major problems of current online doc
systems. I talked to a system administrator who hated the online
documentation of a nameless product because the information included
in printed documentation was not included online. After some research I
found that it was all there; he just thought it wasn't. Information has too
much of a tendency to get lost when it is online, and will until we find
ways to help the user track it.
Steve Christensen
Senior Technical Writer
WordPerfect, Novell Applications Group
Stevech -at- WordPerfect -dot- com
