FW: Non-standard Manual Sizes

["Amy M. Lattof" <amyl -at- ILINC -dot- COM>]

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I posted this to Mary directly, but thought I'd post to the list too incase others would be interested in quick,cheap, but effective printing methods.
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Mary,

I too work for a small software company, and I'm sure that like me, you've got a non-existant budget to produce your manuals and zero production time. Here's what I suggest. Xerox makes a high speed, good quality, printer called a Docutech. (The Kodak version is called a LionHeart.) Many printers and software media producers have them, and they're great! For less than you'd spend on photocopying, you can produce manuals at the equivalent of around 400 dpi (screenshots look great) at any size (I use 7x9 myself) in any quantity (from 5 to 50,000). The price is very reasonable, and the quality is extremely consistent. Also, a good docutech provider can usually turn around a small job (I'd qualify small as anywhere from 5 to 200) in a few days. I highly recommend it. I've heard that there's now a color verision of the Docutech as well, though I haven't seen any samples yet. 

For my purposes it's worked out great! Once the books are "docuteched" I send them to a printer where they put on covers spiral bind them (also not too expensive, and very popular with end users). When our runs were really small I took a hit on the covers (most offset presses are a minimum of 500 pieces), but if you have 500 covers printed, you can use them up little by little as you revise your manuals. You may even be able to find a place that has a docutech, *and* do your covers and binding. 

Docutechs are becoming very popular, even Kinkos has them in some areas. If you can't find one near by, try calling your local Xerox dealer and ask where they've sold them -- they ought to be able to hook you up. Then just check their references and ask for samples before accepting their quote. Web-surfing might be a good way to find a good provider too.

One technical note -- if you're using screen shots I highly recommend that you send your provider electronic files (generally they accept most layout software, or at a minimum post script files). If you send them hard copy they'll have to scan in each page, wich ups your cost considerably, and degrades the quality of the images.

Good luck, and if I can help you out in any way, feel free to post to me directly.

Cheers,

_________________________________
Amy M. Lattof
Manager of Technical Communications
Interactive Learning International Corp. (ILINC)
518-283-8799   
amyl -at- ilinc -dot- com
www.ilinc.com

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From:   Marie C. Paretti[SMTP:mparetti -at- RRINC -dot- COM]
Reply To:       Marie C. Paretti
Sent:   Tuesday, July 29, 1997 2:01 PM
To:     TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
Subject:        Non-standard Manual Sizes

A brief intro: I am the entire documentationand training department for a
small software company.  We have some manuals, all written by very nice,
well-meaning programmers, so I am basically starting from ground zero and
creating a whole new set of documentation (which will include user manuals,
system administrator/technical support manuals, and system integration
manuals).  Right now it's all on Word 97 (though from what I've read on the
list and the potential size of the docs, I may work on trying to sell Frame
to the powers the be).  And yes, I'm tired already, but I really like my job!

Here's my question: my boss asked me the other day about doing the manuals
on something other than 8 1/2 x 11, so I searched the techwr-l archives
this a.m. and discovered that, in fact, there seems to be a trend toward
something more like 7 x 9.  Great.  But for those of you who churn out
these smaller manuals, how the heck do you physically produce the things?
Do you need to have non-standard size manuals printed professionally?  Or
is there actually a company out there that will sell me 7 x 9 paper to feed
into my printer?  Or is there some other handy solution I'm missing?

Thanks in advance.

Marie

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