Re: On-line documentation vs Hard copy

["Brierley, Sean" <Brierley -at- QUODATA -dot- COM>]

Thanks, Mike:

You echoed my thoughts. Color is free for PDF in that the display of the
on-line document costs the same regardless of color. Costs for printing are
also shifted, as you point out, to the customer. The customer has the choice
of output devices, resolution, use of color, etc.

This brings up two important points. The first is that my PDFs are not
necessarily set up for use by a specific service bureau on a specific
machine. Secondly, the design I choose must work both in color and in b&w.

Costs for printing the manual are borne by the customer and, undoubtedly,
these costs are higher for a single customer than they would be if I were to
print out books for all customers at one time (volume). (Actually, we do
provide a printed copy with the software. The PDF is available for on-line
viewing and printing further copies, if the customer so chooses.) The bonus
for the customer, aside from having an easily-updateable book, is the
flexibility of choosing when to print the book and of selecting particular
page ranges. While on printing selected pages is cheaper than printing the
entire book, I expect that the costs of several users frequently printing
selected page ranges will far outweigh the costs of having several complete
copies of the books printed once.

So, for my purposes, color is free.

Sean
sean -at- quodata -dot- com

>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: Huber, Mike [mailto:mrhuber -at- SOFTWARE -dot- ROCKWELL -dot- COM]
>>>Sent: Thursday, April 29, 1999 12:30 PM
>>>To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
>>>Subject: Re: On-line documentation vs Hard copy
>>>
>>>
>>>> From: Barry Kieffer [mailto:barry -dot- kieffer -at- EXGATE -dot- TEK -dot- COM]
>>>...
>>>>         Sean Brierley writes:
>>>> >  Also, (in a .pdf document) color is free!!
>>>...
>>>> It could cost the customer more that $100.00 US to print out
>>>> the manual.
>>>>
>>>> No, my friend, color is not free. <wink>
>>>...
>>>
>>>Depends on the way you intend the PDF to be used.
>>>If it is online documentation, it stinks but the color is free.
>>>If it is a delivery mechanism for documents to be printed
>>>by the recipient, the choice of color or b/w is the recipient's.
>>>As is the cost. Even b/w printing isn't all that cheap. Offset
>>>or photocopy is usually less expensive.
>>>If the document is going to be printed by every customer,
>>>the total cost is probably greater with PDF, but the cost is
>>>shifted. If the document will only be printed in part, or only
>>>by some recipients, the total cost may be reduced.
>>>
>>>---
>>>Office:
>>>mike -dot- huber -at- software -dot- rockwell -dot- com
>>>Home:
>>>nax -at- execpc -dot- com
>>>

 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=