Re: Technical writer dream

[Janice Gelb <janiceg -at- MARVIN -dot- ENG -dot- SUN -dot- COM>]

Alexia Prendergast writes:
>
> I couldn't agree more re: manuals and help not being one
> and the same. However, with judicious use of conditional
> text and modular development, you can easily reuse information
> from the same file -- cutting your development and maintenance
> time.
>

I have found this to be true for task-oriented material, but even then
it may need to be rewritten to some extent. In book form, having the
concept, task, and reference information for one area (for example, a
mail tool) makes the most sense. For online help, however, the task
information is going to be entirely separate from the conceptual or
reference information, meaning you may have to add context to the task
that in the book was present in the preceding or following material.
Also, most online help doesn't provide much conceptual information, so
you may need to add some concepts to a task screen to orient the user.

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Janice Gelb                  | The only connection Sun has with this
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"The Web is the world's greatest library with all the books on the floor"
                                         -- Patrick Casey, AP (Oklahoma)

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