Update: Delivering Docs Electronically

[Ginna Watts <gwatts -at- PIM -dot- BC -dot- CA>]

Thanks so much to all who replied. (And there were many!)

We had a meeting on the issue yesterday. It was great to say, "well, other
people do this and this," and be able to back it up.
(To review, we need to slim down our books, since new material is making
them huge.)

The results:

We are going for a total combo solution:
- we are moving "front matter", Introduction, Installation, Quick Tutorial
etc. to a new, separate (and small) book
- we are moving some intensely techy stuff (error messages, batch file
creation, scripting, command line switches and appendix material) to on-line
only
- we are changing paper weight so we can cram more pages into the existing
covers
- we are delivering the "complete" manual on PDF with the CDs so that people
can print the whole thing out if that's what they really, really want.

We have also decided not to *ever* again release a paper update of our
(dying) DOS manual. Any revisions will be PDF only.

The main book will still hover around 500 pages, but we should be able to
get everything in. We also have a stated goal to continue migrating
information on-line. We think our users are not ready for the total solution
yet, but this is a good compromise.

Thanks again to all who helped!

Ginna
Ginna Watts   -  Technical Writer
Pacific International Mapping
Victoria, BC
(250) 727-0727
gwatts -at- pim -dot- bc -dot- ca