A lot of Equipment manufacturers I work with have stopped shipping printed manuals. You get a printed "Quick Start" or "installation guide" with the product and either a DVD/CD ROM with the manual in PDF or a website to download and print the latest iteration of the manual in PDF.
Printed manuals are both expensive and hard to keep current. There are many benefits to paper manuals, but also many benefits to "soft" manuals. There are mutual benefits to both the manufacturer and the customer, and yes, detractions as well. One video server device that I use has the manual included in the product's hard drive as a web page which they update remotely and automatically via the internet as needed. Anywhere you use the product, the manual is as close as the client computer's browser. When (not *IF*, *WHEN*!) the server goes down, though, how do you reference the manual if you didnt print it or move it to your Ipad/Tablet? Im still not "paperless" in manuals and technical reference documents; I like to have a printed version around. Its an old habit. But Im a dying breed. More and more, I see IPads or Tablets being used for this purpose, a handheld "reference library" of sorts. Its quite efficient with text search functions... that is, until you need the manual at a remote site when the power is out and the battery in the device runs down. The tech in the gear we use today is more and more software based. It changes so quickly and so often, usually by the time the product ships, the manual is several iterations old. Its a sign of the times. I have been doing a lot of thinking about this issue at work recently. So, Im wondering, how upset would us Elecraft customers be if paper manuals were not included with the product? When purchasing the product, you would have to either download the manual from the web and print it if you wanted a printed copy or get it on Optical Media and print it from there Just wondering what everybody thinks about these scenarios. Is it blasphemy? Is it progress? Lu - W4LT K3/P3/K1 ------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2012 08:51:48 -0400 From: Don Wilhelm <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Elecraft] KX3 and KPA500 To: [email protected] Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Yes, updating of on-line pdf manuals is easy and trivial, but what does Elecraft do when 100 manuals have been printed and have to be updated - open them and pencil in the changes? I think not - Errata sheets are the only practical method. 73, Don W3FPR On 6/10/2012 10:34 PM, Jim Brown wrote: > On 6/10/2012 6:34 PM, Don Wilhelm wrote: >> This is a classic example of the results and frustration caused by >> ignoring the Errata Sheet. > Yes, BUT -- with modern desktop publishing, it is trivially easy for a > decent technical writer to keep a pdf up to date. I have several dozen > tutorials online as pdf files, and I can edit the source file, save it > as a pdf, and upload it to my website in an hour. If I can do that, > Elecraft should be able to do that. It's equally easy for that pdf to > include a running list of changes and additions as an appendix. > > 73, Jim K9YC ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
