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Subject:Re: website tech pubs, etc. From:Fox Cole <foxcole -at- gmail -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:20:42 -0600
Keith wrote:
. . . In addition to a PDF that gives the entire manual, you might also set
> up separate PDFs for each chapter. . . . It would be a blessing to the user
> to be able to download only the one part he really needs instead of the
> whole thing. I know that would complicate document management, so I don't
> know if you could get away with it.
>
On a bit of a tangent, could you explain a little more about how it might
complicate document management? I know I must be overlooking quite a number
of things.
I've used the separate-chapter approach for quite a while as a solo tech
writer, using OpenOffice to create chapter documents to be pulled together
by a master document. This way I could easily (and inexpensively) create a
different look for the individual chapters versus the whole book, as needed,
and print each chapter to PDF format.. nothing more to it than that.
Version numbers in the page style header meant each chapter could have its
own version level that wouldn't appear in the complete book, and the change
log for each chapter became part of the change log for the whole.
But that's just in my own little microcosm... what more would chapter
document management involve?
Cheers!
---Fox
If the world were a logical place, men would ride sidesaddle. -- Rita Mae
Brown
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