They
were so nice to have, those printed manuals! But that's it – we have to say good bye to the printed documentation starting
today…
Today, under the pressure of various
environmental organizations all
over the world, the
G8 international group has signed a document that is very
important to the technical writing industry – the “
Online Technical Documentation Act”.
This document makes it necessary for all user manuals to be accessible online on the Internet (at
no cost to the readers). And there must be
no printed manuals shipped with consumer products, with a few exception such
as medical devices and some other types of consumer goods. As they say,
“this step is supposed to minimize the paper consumption when there is no real need for this – everybody has Internet
access, and there are public Internet terminals to be used by citizens”.
This is a questionable conclusion, of course, but this is the deal – there will be no printed
manuals starting from
this day. So, this
is the time to stop printing user manuals, and focus on online documentation formats.
Good Luck to all technical writers with handling this unexpected change!
April 2nd — UPDATE
Hello again, Technical Writers!
As you understand, this was an April joke regarding the "Online Technical Documentation Act". However, as they
say, every joke has a little bit of truth to it.
What if you are required to publish your documentation online tomorrow? Are you ready for this change?
With ClickHelp, you will be ready for this big change – sign up for a
Free ClickHelp Trial to learn more about the product!
