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Subject:Re: documentation on the WWW From:Victor Chapel <victor -at- TRCINC -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 3 Oct 1996 13:23:17 -0400
> From: John Engler <spillman!jengler -at- UUNET -dot- UU -dot- NET>
> We've recently been considering making the documentation
> available on the WWW.
> (and if it would be worth all the time, effort, and
> trouble to convert to HTML). We've never done HTML
> conversions so the learning curve could be pretty steep.
Elna Tynes added:
> There's still a market for ink-on-paper documents,
> in our experience.
I agree with Elna, to a point. We still deliver everything
on paper, but we're starting to convert many to HTML as well.
This doesn't mean documents are available on the WWW.
Many times we send the HTML version on diskette or via email.
This scheme removes the varaible of "is the customer on the web."
I would forget about .PDF because it's proprietary. HTML
will always be accessible from a web browser, and there are
already millions of browsers on computers everywhere.
Even if the customer loses the paper copy, they can _always_
print another one from the HTML source.
The learning curve isn't as steep as it once was, with
HoTaMaLe and Webmaker for Frame, and Internet Assitant for
MS Word. While none of these provides a finished product,
they do eliminate most of the grunt work. For a list of
HTML converters try http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Tools/Word_proc_filters.html
or go straight to the best general-purpose translator,
HTML Transit, at http://www.infoaccess.com/
(warning, sloooooooow downloads)
Victor (HTML-is-easy) Chapel
The Technical Resource Connection
victorc -at- trcinc -dot- com 1-800-872-2992 http://www.trcinc.com
