[Elecraft] Manuals

[David Yarnes]

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" <david at g4dmp.fsnet.co.uk>
To: "David Yarnes" <w7aqk at cox.net>
Cc: "G4ILO" <julian.g4ilo at gmail.com>; <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2008 3:48 PM
Subject: [Elecraft] Manuals


> In a recent message, David Yarnes <w7aqk at cox.net> 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
>
>
>