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Re: Is Word Formatting in End-User docs important? [was:Word Help (problem solved)]
Subject:Re: Is Word Formatting in End-User docs important? [was:Word Help (problem solved)] From:"Sharon Burton-Hardin" <sharonburton -at- earthlink -dot- net> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 29 Nov 2000 07:55:41 -0800
I think I am saying something very close to you. My point is that, in my
company, I pay you for every minute you are in the doc. I don't care if it
is pretty or not, I care that instead of automatically creating the TOC, you
are doing it by hand, for example. And then you have to print the entire doc
to make sure that you added everything. By hand. Guess which takes longer?
Longer means I pay you more. I don't like that. The client doesn't like
that.
Time is money when you are an outsourcing company. If it takes you 1.5 as
long to add text to the doc because the doc is badly managed, I and the
client don't like that. That is my point. The result may look fine when we
PDF, but it is an expensive document to do anything to. It doesn't matter if
the client sees the source docs or not.
sharon
Sharon Burton-Hardin
Anthrobytes Consulting
909-369-8590
www.anthrobytes.com
Vice-president, Programs of the Inland Empire chapter of the STC
www.iestc.org
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Hanson" <PHanson -at- Quintrex -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Sent: Wednesday, 29 November, 2000 7:38 AM
Subject: RE: Is Word Formatting in End-User docs important? [was:Word Help
(problem solved)]
| I agree with you. In your situation, where your clients are seeing the
| Word docs, yes, they should be clean.
|
| In my case, though, I create a PDF file from the 'messy' Word doc. When
| you print the Word doc, you can't tell that it's ugly 'under the
| covers.'
| I don't think they are 'unmaintainable' just because they didn't
| use headings and an auto TOC. I think they are messy and ugly, but I can
| still go into them, hold my nose with one hand, hunt and peck type with
| the other, get my text added, save, and get out before I decide to clean
| up the mess.
|
| I don't know if we're saying the same thing. I think they are
| ugly docs - - I agree with you. If I emailed one to you and you looked
| at the mess it is, you'd fall on the floor in shock. I'm saying there's
| a difference between 'clean' and 'messy' formatting. Both are usable if
| the messiness is transparent to the end-user. In my case, our clients
| don't see the character formatting, the empty paragraph marks, the fact
| that the TOC was created by hand.
|
| Paul
|
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