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To: "Anachie Shakespear" <omath@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: RoboHelp/Online Help Presentations?
From: "Thomas Michanek" <thomas.michanek@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2004 10:51:07 +0100
Cc: "Free Framers" <framers@xxxxxxxxx>
Delivered-to: jeremyg-freeframers:org-ffarchiv@freeframers.org
References: <LYRIS-71113-662198-2004.03.02-19.26.05--chattare#telia.com@lists.FrameUsers.com>
Reply-to: "Thomas Michanek" <thomas.michanek@xxxxxxxxx>
Sender: owner-framers@xxxxxxxxx
[ The original message appeared on the FrameUsers mailing list. This reply is sent only to the "Free Framers" mailing list. If this reply is useful, consider copying it to FrameUsers. ] From: "Anachie Shakespear" <omath@xxxxxxxxx> > Does anyone out there have any presentation slides that relate to: > 1. Why you should move from hardcopy documentation to Online Help? > --the benefits, advantages, etc. > 2. How to move from from hardcopy documentation to Online Help? > 3. Generally, anything that relates to these topics. This is a vast subject, closely related to "single-sourcing". There are numerous articles available on this subject. However, you're asking about *moving* from hardcopy to online help. Even the concepts and workflows of single-sourcing assume that you need both, since they're two very distinct and different animals. You cannot replace a hardcopy manual with an online help system. They serve different purposes, are used differently, and should (must) contain different information, phrased in different ways. Even if you write about the very same topic, you will find that you should phrase yourself differently in hardcopy and online help. And some type of information isn't suited at all for online help. Replacing a hardcopy manual with an electronic version (an HTML or PDF version) is a different thing. Online documentation isn't the same thing as online help. A good set of articles about hardcopy and online help: http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/magazine/technical/onlinehelphomepage.html Some introductions to single-sourcing are: * An introduction to single-sourcing (Simply Written, 2002): http://www.simplywritten.com/library.htm * A new approach to single-sourcing (Dan Emory, 2003): http://www.microtype.com/resources/articles/SingleSourcing_DE.pdf * Introduction to single source (STC Intercom, 2001): http://www.stc.org/intercom/PDFs/2001/200102_23-27.pdf (part 1) http://www.stc.org/intercom/PDFs/2001/200104_26-29.pdf (part 2) * Beyond the buzzword: single sourcing (STC Intercom, 2002): http://www.stc.org/intercom/PDFs/2002/200201_15-17.pdf A controversial article about this topic was the STC Intercom 2002 article "Differentiating online help from printed documentation": http://www.stc.org/intercom/PDFs/2002/20020708_10-12.pdf Some of the debate regarding this article can be found at: * "Of myth and reality": http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/archives/0207/techwhirl-0207-00813.html * "On-line vs. print": http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/archives/0207/techwhirl-0207-01479.html * "Single-sourcing = myth?": http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/archives/0207/techwhirl-0207-00825.html Hope that helps! _____________________________________________ Thomas Michanek, FrameMaker/UNIX/MIF expert Technical Communicator, Uppsala, Sweden mailto:Thomas.Michanek@xxxxxxxxx http://go.to/framers/ _____________________________________________ Join the "Free Framers" mailing list: send an email to majordomo@xxxxxxxxx with "subscribe framers" in the body ** To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxx ** ** with "unsubscribe framers" (no quotes) in the body. **