David and All,
Wordperfect suits me! As does Works, Office One, whatever. All of them
would be translatable into each other. This would not be a complex file
format, so just about every word processing program could handle it. But I
think you are letting your bias against Microsoft (which I certainly can
understand) distract you from the main purpose of my post.
You can actually accomplish much the same thing using PDF files. The
problem with most PDF stuff is whether or not you can actually modify the
document itself. Using one of the word processing programs, you could
actually modify the original document by simply inserting the corrections
rather than just adding revision pages. That could keep your manual much
more concise, assuming you wanted to go to the trouble to do it--which
wouldn't be much. By the way, any word processing document can easily be
provided in PDF format as well. So if PDF is your thing, there's no good
reason why you couldn't continue to have it that way. In fact, I bet all
these Elecraft manuals, and their revisions, etc., are first done on a word
processing program, and then converted to PDF. I'm really just asking them
to make the documents available in their original form. I'm also suggesting
a somewhat more organized method for updating, but that isn't as critical as
having the documents in a word processing format.
I'm just not much in favor of "Errata" sheets. You can get a whole bunch of
errata sheets just to correct minor errors. I'd rather correct the original
document itself, especially for minor items like that. Procedural changes
can be made by "cut and paste". Or, you can just do as I initially
suggested and have revision pages. At least those would be more
appropriately located in your manual rather than having to keep checking the
long list of errata sheets for any possible correction.
Unless you are familiar with this process, which as I indicated is widely
used, you probably can't appreciate it's benefits fully. If you have ever
dealt with frequently updated technical reference material, you probably
know how the process I'm suggesting works.
Dave W7AQK
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Pratt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "David Yarnes" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: "G4ILO" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2008 3:48 PM
Subject: [Elecraft] Manuals
In a recent message, David Yarnes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
I think the manual should be downloadable in Word,
Gosh, I sincerely hope not, David; I for one do not wish to have to start
installing another Microsoft product. How about Corel WordPerfect?
No! Let's stick with Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Files. Most people
have Acrobat on their PC and can print out in whatever size of paper they
choose.
Just my humble opinion!
Mine too.
73
--
David G4DMP
Leeds, England, UK
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