Simply

[Stuart Burnfield]

Yes, I agree that online manuals do support sales to the extent that the 
prospective buyer comes away with a good impression of the product. I've 
done that myself--looked at the index, read an explanation of a concept 
that I already understand, read an explanation of a concept that I don't 
already understand, read a procedure that I would be likely to use, and 
so on.

They can also hinder a potential sale by conveying a general air of 
crappiness--lots of errors, auto-generated index, incoherent 
explanations, poor organisation.

What I doubt has ever happened in the history of the world is that 
someone was persuaded to buy a product because the first page of the 
manual congratulated them on their purchase, or lauded the product as 
being simple, powerful, advanced, popular, user friendly, industry 
leading, blah blah zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Stuart


Gene Kim-Eng said:
 > OTOH, many companies make their manuals available online
 > for prospective buyers to access. Sometimes everything a
 > company does supports sales in some way or another.