Print On Demand

["David R. Warfield" <davidw -at- VNET -dot- IBM -dot- COM>]

Hello tech-whirlers,

I'm an engineer who uses "data books" published by semiconductor vendors.
These publications are technical specifications of integrated circuits
such as microprocessors and memory chips. Lately I've been writing and
producing these kind of documents.

The publications I provide are revised several times a year and are
not printed in large volume (maybe 500 at a time). I've been thinking
about using Print On Demand (POD).

It's been my observation that data books for semiconductor products are
nearly always provided in a "small book" size, about 7" x 9". Sometimes
you'll get very preliminary data sheets on 8 1/2 x 11 (in the US, at least)
but usually the literature department goes to print with the 7 x 9
size as soon as it can.

I've done a quick scan of the POD literature provided by the vendor
my company is using. As near as I can tell no document size near 7 x 9
is supported. I'd have to go with 8 1/2 by 11.

1. Any opinions: is the 7 x 9 size a de facto standard for these
   data books? If so, how important is it to provide my documents
   in this size? (Will my customers form a negative opinion of the
   product because the documentation is "non-standard" size?)
2. If it is important to have the smaller size, does this preclude
   POD? Are there POD vendors who can handle different sizes?

I know there is a desire for soft copy, CD-ROM, web file, etc. versions
of data books. But as near as I can tell engineers don't want to
give up paper versions. So I'd like to restrict the discussion just
to the paper document size. This is my first posting to TECHWR-L;
I hope it's appropriate. Also, I think I missed a thread this year
on optimum document size. So if the questions have already been
answered I'd appreciate a pointer to this thread/archive.
--
David Warfield, IBM Microelectronics        Speaking only for myself
davidw -at- vnet -dot- ibm -dot- com