Hi Gary, For the life of me, I can't see why anyone would want to do such a thing. I'd sure like to hear the rationale as well.
Sometimes it isn't worth chewing through the straps. You've been around long enough to realize it's probably something someone read in a management magazine as a, hairbrained-as-it-may-be, way to save a few bucks. It'll probably come back to bite them in the end. My advice is to just dive right in and do the best job you can. Maybe someone will come to their senses and have you include graphics before it's too late. I think I'd be stashing away the screen shots as I went--just in case. It would be easy enough and true enough to say you're capturing them to use as reference. Have a merry Christmas everyone! Tom Johnson Technical Writer Microline Technology Corp. [EMAIL PROTECTED] +1 231 935 1585 -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Gary Robinson Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2006 10:54 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [TCP] Graphicsless documentation I am authoring online help and adjunct documentation for a client. In a meeting with the prime contractor today I was instructed that there should be no graphics in any of the documentation produced for the client. Their rationale (irrationale?) was that if the documentation ever needed updating it would be too much work to update the graphics. We are using a well known screen capture untility and a authoring tool that is built to reuse every element in the documentation with ease. I pointed out it may take only 2 minutes a graphic to update them if needed (these are mostly screen captures with no formatting other that resizing and a hairline border) but to no avail. I am allowed no contact with the client so I can't ask them their opinion on this directive. Has anyone else produced graphicless documentation? If so, what was the rationale? Inquiring minds, etc. Regards, Gary G. Robinson Technical Communications Consultant [EMAIL PROTECTED] ______________________________________________ Author Help files and create printed documentation with Doc-To-Help. New release adds Team Authoring Support, enhanced Web-based help technology and PDF output. Learn more at www.doctohelp.com/tcp. Are you a Help Authoring Trainer or Consultant? Let clients find you at www.HAT.Matrix.com, the searchable HAT database based on Char James-Tanny's HAT Comparison Matrix. Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] for details. _______________________________________________ Technical Communication Professionals Post a message to the list: email [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, unsubscribe, archives, account options, list info: http://techcommpros.com/mailman/listinfo/tcp_techcommpros.com Subscribe (email): send a blank message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe (email): send a blank message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Need help? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] Get the TCP whole experience! http://www.techcommpros.com
