Re: ?? on Revision Dates (long--sorry!)

[Tom McNamara <tmcnamar -at- DIRECT -dot- CA>]

>When revising or adding pages, should we--
>    1. place the date of the changes/additions *only* on the pages we are
>revising or adding (and not on other existing pages), with the current
>revision date as the supersession date?

>    2. place a date consistent with the current manual revision date in the
>revision date block (even though the changes are being made after that date)?

>    3. change the revision and supersession dates in the entire manual
>(which would be a huge hassle, given the frequency with which this company
>wants changes made/added)?

>And, BTW, just how much change is required to a manual before it is
>considered a "new revision?"


My suggestion:

Each time you are faced with a minor change in a particular  module,
chapter or page, only alter the revision date on the pages being revised as
well as on the cover page so you know that the manual is up-to-date.

However, I would only create a new revision number, or  "supersession"
change, (ie. say  from Rev. "A" to Rev. "B") only after a major overhaul of
the entire manual. That means re-assessing everything from the specs to the
index. In other words, make sure everyone from engineering to production to
marketing has thoroughly reviewed the manual before creating a new
"revision" number. So the question of "how much change is required before
it is considered a new revision" is less a matter of "how much" as opposed
to "how complete" the revision is.

I would be very interested in other responses to this issue as I'm facing
the same dilemma. The only difference from the above is that we're using
Ventura Publisher 4.2 as opposed to Word 7.

tom.

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