RE: A PDF Instructions question

Subject: RE: A PDF Instructions question
From: "McLauchlan, Kevin" <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com>
To: Mike McCallister <mike -dot- mccallister -at- pkware -dot- com>, "dvora -at- tech-challenged -dot- com" <dvora -at- tech-challenged -dot- com>, "techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:15:47 -0500


About instructions for printing a PDF of a manual without accidentally chopping off the footer, Mike McCallister suggested:
>
> Deborah,
>
> If the client knows his users, put it in.
>
> If, judging from the rest of the manual, you think the users are at a
> basic skill level, put it in.
>
> If it only takes five minutes to add the instruction, put it in.
>
> If adding this bit of information doesn't add page(s) to your printed
> manual, put it in.
>
> If adding this bit of information will confuse users or contradict
> anything else in the manual, leave it out.
>
> In short, I see very few reasons to leave it out. ;-)


I generally like to design document pages to fit vertically on Letter-size paper and horizontally on A4 paper, with sufficient white-space that only the most ancient or brain-dead printer won't be able to include all the content.

With that said, if you have to include instructions for one corner case, should you start looking around for other corner cases? In what other ways could PDF printing fail/break?

Should you give them instructions for double-sided printing on printers that don't have duplexing (including finding out which way the pages are lifted and printed - don't want to print the second run over the first pass instead of on the back [blank] sides of those pages, and don't want to print obverse up and reverse inverted...).

Should you instruct them to switch off any option to skip empty pages, in order not to thwart your design that placed several illustrations on facing pages opposite the call-outs?

Etc.

I mean, if you can arbitrarily draw a line regarding what you'll include and what you won't, regarding non-product content, then why not draw the line before you even get into this stuff?


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References:
An Engineer's Christmas: From: Ken Poshedly
cross section vs cross-sectional - what about cross sectioned and cross sectioning: From: Deborah Hemstreet
Re: cross section vs cross-sectional - what about cross sectioned and cross sectioning: From: Robert Lauriston
RE: cross section vs cross-sectional - what about cross sectioned andcross sectioning: From: Combs, Richard
Re: cross section vs cross-sectional - what about cross sectioned andcross sectioning: From: Robert Lauriston
RE: cross section vs cross-sectional - what about cross sectioned andcross sectioning: From: Combs, Richard
Re: cross section vs cross-sectional - what about cross sectioned andcross sectioning: From: Robert Lauriston
A PDF Instructions question: From: Deborah Hemstreet
RE: A PDF Instructions question: From: Mike McCallister

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