Re: manuals w/almost identical content

["Anderson, Keith" <keith_anderson -at- GOOITECH -dot- COM>]

Debbie:

I have a similar situation with three of our products. I use FrameMaker
and conditional text. It works very well for this type of situation. It
requires a little more planning, but it's easy to maintain once you get
used to it.

Keith Anderson
Technical Writer

Gooitech
keith_anderson -at- gooitech -dot- com
(847) 879-4813
http://www.gooitech.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Debbie Figus [mailto:debbief -at- NETVISION -dot- NET -dot- IL]
Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 1998 8:01 AM
To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
Subject: manuals w/almost identical content


I?d like your comments about this situation.

My company has a product line of over 60 interface boards. Each board is
shipped with a hardware and a software manual. Each board requires its
own
hardware manual, which explains the details of each board?s unique
specifications. But the software drivers supplied with each board are
often
used with more than one board. Sometimes one set of drivers works with
ten
different boards.

So I?ve started grouping the software drivers manuals into "The XX
Family"
manuals. On the first page of the "The XX Family" manual, I list the
boards
with which the user can use that particular software. Then, throughout
the
manual, I place notes by any driver functions that apply only to certain
boards.

The main reasons I do this are:
1.  Better manual/revision maintenance. When a change needs to be made
to
one set of drivers, I make the change in one place, rather than having
to
go dig up every manual which includes that driver function, and then
revise
all those other manuals as well.
2.  Less manuals. With such an extensive product line, I think the less
manuals the better. There are simply a lot of manuals to manage.

Well, there?s another opinion in the company. This opinion says every
user/customer should get a manual named for *his* card. In most cases,
the
"XX Family" name includes a part of every board?s product name, but in
at
least one case it doesn?t. This opinion also says that too many notes
throughout a manual is confusing for the user ("This function is only
for
users of boards A, B and C. If you have boards D and E, ignore this
function.")

Anybody want to offer their 2 cents?

Thanks,
Debbie Figus
Excalibur Systems
Jerusalem, Israel

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