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Subject:Re: Generating two different manuals From:Paul Pehrson <paulpehrson -at- gmail -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Mon, 28 Feb 2005 15:36:02 -0700
Dick Margulis wrote:
> Every page had a "student notes" section at the bottom
> (generally about half a page, give or take). Immediately below the Notes
> divider was the hidden text with the instructor material, which was in a
> reduced font to ensure that it would fit in the area reserved for it.
> Student and instructor versions all had the same page numbers
> automatically, with no macro magic or cross-ref fields.
Speaking from a usability perspective, I'd say it is important that
the instructor and student versions have the same pages. It saves a
lot of confusion for everybody involved.
In college, I took a textbook editing course. The course was focused
on content, not tools, so I don't have any suggestions for you on
tools. However, we analyzed a variety of textbooks and their
accompanying instructor versions.
For textbooks that were meant for use in primary and secondary
schools, the publishers usually followed one of two formats for the
instructor copies:
Case 1: The instructor copies of the textbook were printed on a larger
paper than the student versions. The student version of the textbook
appeared at 100% size. Additional instructor information (answers to
questions, contextual information, additional teaching activities,
etc.) is included in the margins (hence the larger paper) and in-text
using a different font and color (usually a san-serif font, in red
ink).
Case 2: The instructor copies of the textbook were printed on the same
size paper as the student versions, but appeared at a reduced size
(maybe 70 to 80%). The additional information was included in the same
way.
I don't know what software publishing companies use for this purpose.
For textbooks that were meant for use in colleges and universities,
the student versions are normally printed with wide margins to allow
students to take notes in the margins. The instructor versions use
those extra-wide margins to include relevant notes/answers/etc.
You could do this in Frame very easily with conditional text.
Anyway, I just thought you (and maybe others) might be interested in
knowing how many textbooks are formatted. Knowing what others are
doing can sometimes help you make better decisions about what you
should do.
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