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Re: What doc formats do readers actually use? Was, "what doc formats do READERs want ?"

Subject: Re: What doc formats do readers actually use? Was, "what doc formats do READERs want ?"
From: John Allred <jack -at- allrednet -dot- com>
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2011 08:45:57 -0600

Thinking of Stephen Arrants's note about being on the doc team for Word for Windows, remember the box that the MS Office product came in during that era? My version 4.0 of Office came out in 1994, and it took nearly 10" of books, and close to fifteen pounds, to document the whole thing. Or, so the prevailing wisdom was at that time.

I've never since seen an aftermarket book that had the depth that was present in the version 4.0 book for Excel. As I recall, not one happy, peppy discussion in the whole thing. But, man! Every function laid out in minute detail. If you wanted to learn how to make that application talk, there was your book.

John Allred

On 12/14/2011 8:26 AM, Al Geist wrote:

Dan Goldstein and Stephen Arrants both commented on the quality of Help for
Microsoft Word and Outlook. It doesn't stop there....virtually all of the
Microsoft Office applications have massive, but lousy Helps. I've found
through the years that if you want assistance in a Microsoft product, you
either become real friends with one of their MVPs, or you buy a good
after-market book.

Al Geist-Geist Associates

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Choose your authoring formats and get any output you may need. Try
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Follow-Ups:

References:
RE: What doc formats do readers actually use? Was, "what doc formats do READERs want ?": From: Stephen Arrants
RE: What doc formats do readers actually use? Was, "what doc formats do READERs want ?": From: Dan Goldstein
RE: What doc formats do readers actually use? Was, "what doc formats do READERs want ?": From: Al Geist

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