Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mit-eddie!mit-amt!mjkobb From: mjkobb@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Michael J Kobb) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: Microsoft Word Documentation Summary: A few points.. Keywords: Word, ASCII, documentation Message-ID: <435@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> Date: 5 Aug 89 01:46:40 GMT References: <927@key.COM> <8400136@m.cs.uiuc.edu> <4046@udccvax1.acs.udel.EDU> <7209@microsoft.UUCP> <4269@tekig4.LEN.TEK.COM> <7246@microsoft.UUCP> Reply-To: mjkobb@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Michael J Kobb) Organization: MIT Media Lab, Cambridge MA Lines: 62 In article <7246@microsoft.UUCP> delaniej@microsoft.UUCP (Delanie Alcorn-Jones) writes: >Brian Diehm says: >> My first suggestion for Delanie is that if Word is to have a dictionary- >>style reference book, it must have entries for each and every command that is >>listed in the "Commands..." dialog. > > This is a tough one. One one hand, you do want an entry for every > command in the product; but, on the other hand, the Commands command > added many esoteric commands to the product that would have greatly > enlarged the documentation if each had a separate entry. Nonetheless, ALL the features really need to be _visibly_ documented to do any good. > First, users often relate big manuals with products that are hard > to use. Maybe you should do it the way Aldus did their PageMaker 4 docs. A user's manual, which is all you really need if you're a normal mortal doing daily stuff; and, a reference manual, which is for when normal mortals venture into the unknown. (Of course, immortals or abnormal mortals don't need _any_ manuals ;->) > We felt that some of the suggestions from the beta testers were > important enough to add to the product even if we couldn't reflect > them in the documentation. We did document them in the readme file Kudos! If people would read the readme files, they would find out things. I think it's admirable that Microsoft put the features there. Having them there and documented in the Readme file is far better than awaiting another release to add them for the sake of putting the docs in the manual. I'll usually get around to reading my manuals cover to cover (skipping only the Getting Started sections for stuff I've already figured out). I haven't done this yet with 4.0, since I just got it, so the following may have been done: How about formatting the Readme files so that if printed, it looks like a manual page, so that it could be easily stuck into the manual in the appropriate place? Silicon Beach went so far as to enclose a Xeroxed, laser- printed addendum with their 2.0 docs, and all you had to do was go through and insert/replace the appropriate pages in their manual. > This is a very good point! One of the things we've realized about > alphabetic references is that there's really no entry point for > users -- no beginning, no end, no overall view. Once again, maybe the user's manual - reference manual pair would solve this. Only the reference manual need be alphabetical. > Another tough one! One of the sad things we've come to realize > in the last year (sad to writers anyway) is that most users do > not "read" documentation. "When all else fails, read the directions." Too many people, myself included, use this too often. THANKS for being responsive and being here. It shows a really positive trend in Microsoft's thinking... --Mike Standard disclaimers.