[Sigia-l] When Should a Manual be Web-based?

[Martin Langhoff]

Bollaert, Jodi wrote:

>Greetings...
>
>Does anyone have any tips for deciding when a manual should be web-based
>(vs. in a PDF or Word format)?
>
When the product is _only_ a website, I guess it is probably ok to have 
a web-based only manual.

The rest of the time, write the manual in a display independant format 
(TEX, DocBooc, whatever) and generate multiple outputs: PDF, website, 
RTF, etc. Also allows you to do what the Linux Documentation Project 
does: supply a large HTML doc or one HTML per chapter.

The only reason not to do it like this would be... cost... and maybe 
lack of expertise of your technical writers... but I would never trust a 
technical writer that cannot see beyond MSWord. Indeed, the LDP has a 
host of resources to help you in the 'cash/expertise strapped' scenario. 
They run a wiki that allows you to edit a large document with a 
web-based interface, and crank out DocBook SGML out the other end. And 
there is a howto on how to do it yourself. Perrrrrrfect.

regards,




martin

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