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Subject:Re: on-line vs. hard copy From:Becca Price <rp51 -at- CHRYSLER -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 3 Jun 1997 13:30:21 -0400
the brief answer is, you can - if you want poorly organized help files.
<soapbox>
People use help files *differently* than they use paper docs. They
don't want to browse, they want to get the specific information when
they need it. So you use more headings in online help, to break up
text into smaller, more focused topics. You create different types of
topics: background, information, conceptual, procedural, "how to" -
there's an infinite variety of possibilities. In essence, paper dox
and online help are strucutred differently.
also, people navigate help differently than page turning in a paper
doc. So you need more cross references: leads to related topics,
interesting tangents, and more detailed/more high-level information.
There's also more redundancy, because you have to put all *relevant*
information in a specific topic, and can't assume that your users will
make "see also" jumps.
this is the basic falacy behind programs such as Doc-to-help (which is,
IMHO, a technically better application than RoboHelp is - but the
underlying falacy makes it much less useful). D2H assumes that paper
and online help can be structured the same, and they can't. IMHO, YMMV.
</soapbox>
-becca
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