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Subject:not a slam From:Barbara Karst-Sabin <Phillinion -at- AOL -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 8 Jun 1998 19:52:50 EDT
This really isn't intended to be a slam against production people, but I'm new
to the kind of environment where the production people have the ultimate
control over the form of the finished document.
I've worked most of my career for the goverment where the "production"
functions were either handled by the tech writer or the editor. I'm finding
that things like applying the proper template to a document take precedence
over readability and usability.
For example, in a programming doc, such as an API, it is important that an
"if-then" in code isn't broken up. However, minor tweaking done to paragraph
tags done to avoid just that kind of thing is blithely overriden before the
document is sent to the printer. When I pointed out the problem (in an
already published doc), I was told by the manager (a recently promoted
production person) that the templates must be exactly the same for all docs,
the "bad breaks" don't matter.
Is this common practice? Has anyone had different experience? Or has anyone
had this problem and managed to get around it?
