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Subject:Re: Online Manuals From:"Wilcox, John (WWC, Contractor)" <wilcoxj -at- WDNI -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 23 Jun 1998 15:50:53 -0700
> ----------
> From: Bergen, Jane[SMTP:janeb -at- ANSWERSOFT -dot- COM]
>
> > From: Suzette Seveny [mailto:sseveny -at- PETVALU -dot- COM]
> (snipped)
> > I have to develop manuals that will be kept online. Users
> > will have the
> > option to read them online, or if they prefer, print their
> > own hard copies
> (more snipped)
> > the manuals (i.e. acrobat reader or anything like that). How
> > feasible is it to:
> > a) simply put the Word documents online (in either *.doc or
> > *.rtf format)
> > b) save the Word documents in *.htm or *.html format (what is the
> > difference, anyway?) and put that online?
>
> Suzette, you do NOT want to put your Word documents online. The
> problem
> is that when someone opens a Word document that they did not create,
> the
> formatting (margins, styles, fonts, etc.) falls apart because they do
> not have the underlying template. We've tried it and it wasn't a
> pretty
> sight. Try it yourself....give one of your engineers a Word document
> and
> ask him or her to open it and print it. Unless you have a minimum of
> format (no bulleted lists, left-hanging headings, tab changes,
> user-defined styles, numbered lists, etc.), you'll be unpleasantly
> surprised.
>
I encountered so much of this problem here that I, well, implemented one
of those convoluted workarounds:
1. Open the document you want to share.
2. Go to Format/Style/Organizer.
3. Note the two panes in the Styles tab. Assuming your document's
template is something other than normal.dot, open the template in the
right window. If it's normal.dot, ignore this step.
4. Select all of the styles in the template window, then click Copy to
copy them into your document.
5. Close the dialog box.
6. Go to Tools/Templates and Add-ins.
7. Your document's template name is highlighted. Press Delete to delete
it. Click OK.
You can now rest assured that everyone else who opens the doc will see
it as you intended.
As for the rest of Suzette's dilemma:
- I advise against using Word's print-to-html function. It'll make
your docs look like, well, bad. Sort of like someone wiped up used a
kleenex to wipe up some coke, then xeroxed it.
- There's no difference between .htm and .html. The former is used on
operating systems limited to the 8.3 filename format.
- If you convert to HTML, you'll also need to convert your BMP files to
GIFs (I think). I've gone to taking all my screen shots as GIFs these
days. Saves a lot of disk space, too.
- I can't imagine why your boss doesn't want to use Acrobat, unless --
does he have pointy hair? I mean, creating PDF files from Word output
is simple, the resulting doc looks and prints just like the original,
and the reader is freely distributable. What else could one want?
Regards,
John Wilcox, Documentation Specialist
Timberlands Information Services, Application Delivery Group
Weyerhaeuser, WWC 2E2, Box 2999
Tacoma, WA 98477-2999 USA
253-924-7972 mailto:wilcoxj -at- wdni -dot- com
(I don't speak for Weyerhaeuser, and they return the favor.)
