Shipping books vs. ordering books by mail

[Emily Skarzenski <71220 -dot- 341 -at- COMPUSERVE -dot- COM>]

On 22 Feb, Win Day wrote:

>>>Just a suggestion, but why not include an electronic version of the manuals
so the customers can print or not as they choose? Not an online version, because
that's a whole 'nother product, but a Word6 doc or WP doc or whatever you choose
to include.<<<

This is a good idea, but be careful about sending documents that can be edited.
I don't permit any documents to leave my company in an editable word processing
format. I do this primarily because I don't want competitors or other unsavory
types to get hold of them. Of course, if someone really wants to
replicate-and-bastardize or copy from our docs, they can--but why make it easy?

Plus, there can be output problems. And while people are screwing with documents
trying to output them, they can unintentionally bastardize the content without
knowing it. An ugly problem! Plus, if the outputting is difficult for any
reason--even if it's entirely due to customer stupidity--it will reflect on your
product and your company.

Two options: use Adobe Acrobat--free reader, reads documents in an uneditable
format. (There are other viewer-type programs as well.) Or, you can print your
files to disk and send the .PRN files. This isn't elegant and it's specific to
the printer language you use (PCL 5 print files don't work on a printer that
only prints PCL 4; PostScript and PCL don't mix either.)