Re: Distributing Word docs to customers

Subject: Re: Distributing Word docs to customers
From: <neilson -at- windstream -dot- net>
To: Beth Agnew <Beth -dot- Agnew -at- senecac -dot- on -dot- ca>,<techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 8 May 2007 14:49:01 -0400

Beth Agnew said:
> Another thing to think about is the customer support liability issue. If a
> customer takes information from a document (whether Word or PDF) and makes
> their own "cheat sheet" or mini-manual, as some like to do, those documents
> do not get updated with the usual manual set. Incorrect information can
> creep in when the user copies, adds to, or changes the information during
> the course of repurposing it. They may change meaning, and introduce errors.

This is not a new situation. Back in the days of user printed manuals, where
separate colors showed the difference between user-typed commands and the
prompts and output from the computer, a university customer complained:
"The manual refers to two separate colors, rust and brown, but the manual
itself is printed in just black and white. Please send us manuals that are
actually printed in color."

It turns out that the university's mathematics department lacked the budget
to purchase multiple copies of the official manual. So they had made Xerox
copies for all the students on the copying machine in the university's
administrative office. No additional budget was required; the entire expense
was hidden in "administration". The fake manuals were very hard to use, and
the blame somehow fell on the Xxx Computer Company.

Word now makes it possible to do make the same mistake much more easily, with
the text referring to the special interpretion intended for "text printed in
the RaraAvisUnique font" ("typeface" for the printerly literate) that somehow
mysteriously appears in Times New Roman.

--Peter Neilson


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