Post-production changes?

Subject: Post-production changes?
From: "Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2001 15:40:50 -0400

Kevin Rush seeks information on <<... post-production revisions, revision
etc. ... Needs: A way to add post-production changes to a manual: so it can
be found; so the TOC and Index do not need changed... I have written to user
manuals, one for scheduling and one for the registration of medical
appointments... The instructor for the next course was building her training
plan and noticed a segment was not documented in the current edition and
would like it to be added without a full rewrite of the appropriate chapter
and changing the TOC and Index since those are already in print. How can I
add the documentation for the missing process and add it to the current
manual.>>

If the manual hasn't been printed, or is scheduled for reprinting, it's
worthwhile simply incorporating the material where it would prove most
effective within the manual. Once the manual is in print, you can't change
it inexpensively (if at all), so you only really have two choices: print an
addendum that users will lose, ignore, or damage beyond the possibility of
use, or produce an online document of some sort that has much the same
nature, except that it's harder to lose or damage.

The online approach is probably the most effective, since it lets you
integrate the new material with the application (via context-sensitive help)
in such a manner that the material can't be lost or damaged (unless the
application as a whole is damaged), and is easily available whenever someone
goes searching for the information. Of course, that assumes the CDs haven't
already been released to manufacturing; if they have, you're scrod (as the
fishermen say). Putting the information in a "read me" file or leaving it
lying somewhere on the CD won't work, because only geeks like me ever read
the readme files, and even we often skim through the file and ignore
anything that doesn't particularly interest us.

--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
"User's advocate" online monthly at
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