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I am writing a paper on "Documentation for electronic distribution", aimed
primarily at in-house software, shareware, and public domain IBM-PC authors.
The aim of the paper is to give non-writers some things to think about
and some guidelines when putting together documentation for their products.
The typical scenario i see is the programmer including some *.doc, *.txt or
*.ps (PostScript), read.me files in the archive that also contains the
program. I am going to write about things like quick start sections,
structuring the document (inlcuding sections like an overview, index, TOC,
etc), appropriate detail and depth, making it easy for the user to "get
into" the product.
Any opinions on the above, more ideas on what should be covered, or things
you would like to see software authors include in their electronically
distributed documentation?
Please forward replies to doug -at- citr -dot- uq -dot- oz -dot- au and i will post a summary if
there is enough interest. Thanks!
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Doug Osborn | Centre for Information Technology Research
Technical Writer | Level 6, Gehrmann Laboratories
InterNet: doug -at- citrus -dot- uq -dot- oz -dot- au | The University of Qld, St Lucia
Phone : + 61 7 365 3548 | Qld, Australia 4072. Fax: +61 7 365 4399
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