Fw: Re: Powerpoint is overkill for manuals!

[Tim Altom <taltom -at- SIMPLYWRITTEN -dot- COM>]

>Actually, you can export from PP to HTML and also Word, so as far as being
>locked in...

>There may be a reason,
>that someone with limited knowledge of options may believe created a
>justification for doing it this way, like maybe wanting to create run-time
>versions for distribution on diskette?

I hear what you're saying, John, and I see why you'd conclude this. But
there are better applications for online distribution and online viewing
than PP, like PDF. PDF itself is a dead-end, but there are slick ways of
treating is as an end product and maintaining upstream integrity.

There are way, way better creation tools then PP. PP is clumsy and inexact
for manual production, in any reasonable and customary definition of
"manual". Older versions of PP don't import. And PP's graphics
don't...repeat don't...export reliably. Textures are often impossible to
export. We spent dozens of hours on one large project trying to wrestle PP
into submission and get its text and graphics out efficiently. There the
SMEs wrote their own materials, and since they were almost all trainers,
they wrote in PP. Slides don't do well in print, because PP is designed for
bullet-point presentation, not explanation. Wrong paradigm.

From our point of view, a document, whatever the definition, has to be
considered as an investment. Investments should never be confined to rapidly
outdated formats or considered as "one-offs". It's our job as the doc
specialists to make sure our clients and employers have open-ended
documentation that can be reused in new and unforeseeable ways. PP is a very
poor way of accomplishing this goal, even if the client is hot for it.

Tim Altom
Adobe Certified Expert, Acrobat
Simply Written, Inc.
The FrameMaker support people
Ask about Clustar Method training and consulting
317.899.5882
http://www.simplywritten.com


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