Joe Geiser writes:

> Oh this is funny...but it did remind me of my former employer.
>   Manuals would be taken and never returned - and always found
>  homes in cubicles...  So when I re-upped the support contract, I
>  killed the paper manuals and had Laser-ROM replace it.
>
>  When the CDs came in, I set up a Win95 machine with dual CD
>  drives..  LaserROM went in one of them and I shared the drive.
>   Folks could then install the client software and search from
>  their desktops, thus rendering the need for paper manuals
>  obsolete...  or so I thought.
>
>  What did these geniuses do?  They printed entire chapters on a
>  Laserjet and made their own binders!  (and now they ask why I
>  left...hehehe)

This is one of those rare occasions that I significantly disagree with Joe.
Most people aren't particularly comfortable reading information off of a
screen. A paper copy is more friendly -- and enormously more convenient (and
portable) than anything read off of a CRT. And it's one of the things that
we've been often asked to do with our own on-line help.

The overwhelmingly clear advantage of on-line help is that is immediately
searchable. If you only have to retrieve something minor, such as syntax,
on-line help is exceptionally helpful. But I have yet to be convinced that
most people find it very easy to learn complex ideas from such a format.

What we're intending to do in our next release of on-line help (after the
current version is released) is rewrite all of our on-line help in HTML --
and then write small HTML-to-plain-ASCII and HTML-to-PostScript converters
for the HP3000. This will allow the same help screens to (i) be printed out
onto a terminal's screen, (ii) printed quite nicely as complete sections or
chapters to a PostScript printer, as well as (iii) being put on-line, onto
the web so that it will displayable and searchable from any browser.

Wirt Atmar