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Subject:Repeating a section in two manuals From:"Amy M. Lattof" <amyl -at- ILINC -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 3 Aug 1998 11:25:50 -0400
Hi everyone! I'd like your opinion on a dilemma I'm currently facing. My company is releasing a major upgrade of our software product, and overall I'm pretty happy with the way my documentation plan is rolling out. However, I'm not sure what to do about the installation information.
In past releases all reference information was online in one big reference guide. The reference guide contains information about setting up and maintain the server, testing the system, customization, and other general system information. However, users didn't like having installation information online and sometimes had trouble finding it at all. The interim solution was a small hard copy installation guide in addition to the online reference guide for administrators.
The hard copy installation guide is a successful piece that has helped to reduce customer service calls and customer installation stress, so I want to keep the guide format pretty much "as is".
Now, here's the dilemma. For the new release, I'm going back to producing the reference guide as a hard copy piece as well.
1. Should I repeat the installation information in it's entirety in the reference manual? I don't really like repeating the information twice in two hard copy guides, but it really seems like it belongs in the reference guide since it contains all the other information about the server.
2. Where should the information in the small installation guide stop? Should I include testing instructions in the small guide too?
I'd greatly appreciate hearing from anyone with advice or similar experiences. I'm on digest, so please post directly to me and I'll post a summary if others want to see the responses.
