Are Printed Manuals Dead?

Bantik asks: "I work for a software publisher, and there's a raging debate going on upstairs about whether or not we should continue providing printed manuals. I think that between a program's Help menu, documentation in PDF form on the program CD, and the online documentation on our Web site (HTML and PDF), we're fine. What do /.'ers think? Are printed manuals a thing of the past? And what major software vendors are going down the Paperless Path?" While some of my peers would just love to declare paper dead and a thing of the past, I feel that physical manuals are still very necessary. There's nothing like having a reference you can flip to and computers aren't common enough that there's one at every place you might find the time (or desire) to read. Thoughts?

Comments

debate, shembate

[hatless]

Tell those cheap marketing folks "upstairs" that at the very least installation and quickstart guides must be provided in print, and that they must at least sell printed versions of all documnetation, especially that boring, repetitive and bulky "reference" stuff.

PDF documentation is nice to have, especially if it's searchable, indexed, and linked. It's good to be able to print a book yourself if the prnted copy has walked away. But a stack of 8.5"x11" or A4 printouts in a binder or held together with a big paperclip is a horrible substitute for a bound book. And reading docs onscreen is nice unless you're trrying to get work done and read the docs at the same time. Clicking back and forth gets tedious quickly.

HTML docs and context-sensitive help are nice for some things. But again, they are used differently from a nice book. Sometimes you just need a book. This will change when large-format high-resolution (>200 dpi) e-book readers become available, but until then the rule should be: if you have enough documentation to make a 200-page book, you must offer it as a 200-page book.

Marketing folks will argue that since you've made the sale, it doesn't matter what format the docs are in, because you've already won the customer. But that's not true. Software with awkward, inaccessible documentation makes for unhappy, frustrated users, and when the product comes up for re-evaluation 18 months later, that frustration gets expressed in a desire to work with something "less awkward".

You can have the best product on the market, but if your documentation is frustrating to work with, then your product is frustrating to work with.

Ask your company's inside-sales people, who deal with current customers. Customers tell them what they think of CD-only documnentation. And it's not nice.

Don't you fucking dare

[Plasmoid]

Printed manuals are essential. They allow me to review documentation when I don't have access to the computer or program. I could be on a plane, the computer could be dead or I might just not like reading things online.

I'm sure everyone will agree that a real book is far easier to read than a monitor. The insignificant cost of providing a manual to you customers makes up for far more than it's cost in time and effort

Make the manuals searchable!

[loki7]

I like HTML because it fast, easily searchable, and viewable by standard Web browsing software, which virtually every computer already has installed nowadays.

HTML is only easily searchable if your doc is stored in one big HTML document! AFAIK none of the popular browsers can search multiple HTML documents in any reasonable fashion.

PDF, for all its faults, is at least searchable, and handles large documents much better than HTML does.

/peter

I want both

[SurfsUp]

Please give me docs that I can sit down with outside and leaf through at my leisure, with no need to be anywhere near a computer.

And please give me online docs in html format (at minimum!) - no PDF or postscript please, unless this is also accomanied by html.

By far the most important version is the online, hypertext, searchable version. Whenever there's a tradeoff to be made for cost reasons, favor the online docs.

On the other hand, when I pay big money for a software product I *expect* printed docs and if I don't get them I probably won't be back a second time.
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Vendor Rationalizations

[Detritus]

Many vendors try to justify the deletion of printed manuals by saying that it saves trees, reduces shipping costs and other malarkey.

The reality is that they want to save money. It costs serious money to write, edit, design and print high quality manuals.

I recently bought a retail copy of Microsoft Office 2000 and it had no manuals. This is not a cheap software package. I felt I had been ripped off (again) by Microsoft.

Help files and PDF files are not a substitute for printed documentation. You can't do high quality graphics and book design when the output device is a CRT. A two-dimensional display is not an adequate substitute for a book.

Paperless is the way to go.

[Surak]

Even Microsoft has greatly reduced the manuals that they provide nowadays. Programs that used to be distributed in huge boxes are no longer distributed that way. Especially OEM software, which in many cases relies almost exclusively on online documentation.

I am responsible for software production and distribution at General Motors, and we are moving our release notes from paper to paperless. That is the general direction for GM anyway.

I don't think paper manuals are really a necessity. I personally don't use them, instead I always look on the CD for documentation in *preferrably* HTML format, but PDF is ok, too.

I like HTML because it fast, easily searchable, and viewable by standard Web browsing software, which virtually every computer already has installed nowadays.

Re:Paperless is the way to go.

[Surak]

Just the opposite for me. I learned my first language, BASIC, by reading manuals. My second language was Turbo Pascal, which I learned primarily through hyperlinked documentation (as in Turbo Pascal 4.0) and by hacking other people's code (of course)

Although, I have to say that its probably much different if you are learning your FIRST language as opposed to your SECOND or THIRD language. In retrospect, I think if my first language had been Turbo Pascal, it would have taken me much longer to learn.

Of course we aren't talking about programming languages here. I learned to use Lotus 1-2-3 (and later, Microsoft Excel) primarily through online documentation and just generally poking around at things. Most application software I learn this way. I learned Perl by basically inhaling the Camel Book, however, so I guess there can be made a case either way.

Re:Paperless is the way to go.

[dbarclay10]

1) Microsoft, after supplying only the BARE minimals worth of documentation, sold the "Resource Kit"(which was really a good manual) for $60+.

2) You much has a really nice novel, and a really nice seat. When I've got to learn a programming language from on-line/on-screen docs, it takes me about three times as long as if I had a printed book. Mostly because it's harder on the eyes, I can't bring it with me when I go to pick somebody up at the airport(that's a good 2 hours of wasted time), etc., etc..

Printed manuals and books, I feel, will become a precious commodity. I have no problem with that - so long as I can get them. :)

Dave

Missing the obvious

[warpeightbot]

The one most excellent reason for having the treeware that heretofore no one has mentioned:

YOU CAN SCRIBBLE ON IT.

You can highlight, you can underline, you can make notes in the margins, you can note where the tech pubs dudes fscked up... you can put those little flourescent sticky tabs on the critical sections and scribble what they are on the tabs, thus producing over time a crude but bloody effective search engine...

As long as you can still print the HTML/PDF/Word doc/whatever, geeks will continue to do so, for this very reason... and, of course, the fact that it's portable and not power-dependent, and just plain easier to read. But the scribble factor is quite large... and often overlooked.

--
Nuts on modding up the AC's. Make them login.

Printed Manuals? YES!

[Atomic Frog]

As much as I use computers and like to be at the bleeding edge of every development, I still want good old fashioned PRINTED manuals.

We've got some software that comes with software-only manuals in the company. Inevitably what happens is that people just print it out anyways. It would make the customer a LOT happier to heft a real manual in the box.

I see 2 main issues to software docs:
- No screen is as good as a printed piece of paper to read. Yet. And I've got some darn fine LCD's at my disposal. (including a 13.7" baby that will handle 1280x1024)
- It is WAY more convenient to flip through pages by hand than using any search function.

Print On Demand Services could solve both problems

[w3woody]

Disclamer: I have never used thier service, only heard about it.

However, FatBrain (www.fatbrain.com) offers what they call "Print On Demand" services which permit authors of software (amongst others) to provide electronic manuals, and give them an option to buy the printed manual from FatBrain. What makes this system interesting is that there is no risk to you: they literally print the book on demand just before shipping. That way, there isn't excess inventory, and you could even set the print costs to just above the cost to print the manual--that way, your company saves on printing costs and inventory costs, and for those (like myself) who want printed manuals, they have a low-cost alternative to printing the whole thing out.

My understanding is that print-on-demand services is also provided by Barnes and Nobel, though I couldn't find any information on their web site.

For more information about FatBrain's print on demand services, visit http://www1.fatbrain.com/inf oexchange/program.asp?vm=c

Some manuals must be on paper

[LordNimon]

The following documentation must be provided on paper:

• Installation Guide - until the software is installed, online docs don't work. And no, HTML or PDF documentaion is not enough - it requires the user to have other software installed. Besides, most installation programs can't share the screen with other windows, so the user won't be able to see the online docs anyway.
• Troubleshooting - if something is wrong with the software or computer, online docs will again not work.
• Getting Started and Tutorials - people who read these documents, by definition, need some hand-holding, so they need to be able to read the documentation and run the software at the same time, and it's usually difficult to fit both on the screen at the same time.

Basically, there are three advantages for paper documentation:

• Ability to read the documentation when you're not at the computer. However, I'm not sure if this has any real value, since I personally have had little success in understanding the documentation without the software right there to show me what's going on.
• Ability to read the documentation when administering software remotely. Unless your documentation is available in cross-platform text, PDF, or HTML format, it's usually impossible to read it online from a different computer. Imagine setting up a Samba server remotely? If the docs weren't in text format, most people wouldn't be able to read them!
• When you need to read the docs and use the software at the same time. Unless the user is running at 1600x1200, the screen is usually too small to display the application and the online documentation at the same time.

Advantages of online documentation include:

• Frequent updates. Online documentation is typically more correct than printed documentation. If you discover an error in the documentation, you can simply provide a new PDF (or whatever) for download.
• Total electronic delivery. A user can purchase and download the entire application in one shot. If the documentation were available only on paper, you couldn't download it.
• Cost reduction.
• Environmental savings.

Giant reference manuals, which are seldomly used, are a good example of documentation that can be placed online only.

One thing you should always do is provide all of your documentation electronically. A user should be able to view all the documentation online if he chooses. Never provide any documentation in paper format only. You may also want to sell two versions of the application: one with and the other without paper manuals. The version without paper manuals should be cheaper.

This is about cost (scalability)

[Money__]

Our company had a manual we made available to our customers at no cost. The manual was full of useful and educational information that helped the customer get more productivity out of the machine they purchased.

Customers liked them so much that we started releasing updates to them. We went from releasing them every 2 yeas to every year, then every 6 months, then every 3 months.

When the work sterted to get overwhelming (and our customer base grew) I went in to ask for another engineer to help the project keep on schedule. In the meeting, my boss informed me that we spent over $75,000 in the previous year just on printing and distribution and asked that I look for new ways to lower that cost. Then, and only then, would he consider bringing on additions to the staff.

The lesson here is that a printed solution doesn't scale well. It's fine for a small user base, but as that base grows, a printed solution adds up to real money.

In the end, we went back to giving one manual with the purchase of the product and gave away newer versions of the docs on-line to keep customers satisfied. We increased our update schedule to every month, and hired the extra engineer.
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I never read docs that come with the program

[Greyfox]

I've found that for the commercial programs I've worked with, the docs are absolutely useless, printed or otherwise. I usually end up going out and buying a book if the program is complex enough to require documentation. Maybe you should convince your management that they should ship third party books with your software.

Oddly enough, I generally find the man pages that come with the assorted free software that I much prefer to be comprehensive and useful. Go figure.

Re:Printed manuals... HELL NO!!!

[FTL]

Other than that, it's also way easier to use a manual that I can keep open to relevent pages while I'm programming on the system. I guess a two-monitor set-up might work, but... it's just not the same.

You've hit the nail on the head. I used to prefer printed documentation because it allowed me to look at the docs and the offending program at the same time. Then I bought a second monitor, and my preferences are now quite the opposite.

The advantages of online documentation are:

1. Searchable.
2. Copy and paste examples straight into the application.
3. Follow the trail of purple links to see where you've been before (one could do this with books, but I don't like mutilating/marking them)
4. Link out to relevant web sites.
5. Download the latest changes and updates.
6. Always available, your co-workers haven't 'borrowed' it.
7. Results in cheaper software since I'm not paying for a dead tree.

Offtopic: The one thing that really annoys me about most documentation (printed or online), is that there is frequently no introductory text telling you what this product is for. It is irritating to find a piece of software called "GrokMaster 2000" and look at docs, and find the functionality of everything spelled out in minute detail, yet be totally mystified as to what the program is actually for.

Paper manuals will never die...

[billyt007]

I hope paper manuals will never die. They really do provide a good way to read about the program. First, I don't have a Palm or laptop (yet, come on Birthday!) so when I fly or travel long distance in a car (like going home from college) I like to read. That's the obivious one. The not-so obivious advangate to paper manuals is the fact that I can read them while working on the very program. I like mult-tasking outside of my computer. I will keep the manual in my lap or on the side of my desk and work and read and generally get my work done easyily without having to look up in some help. I admit there are some nice things about electronic help. But for the most part I prefer a paper manual to anything else.

One thing you (person who asked the question) should keep in mind is a paper manual gives the consumers another reason to buy your product. I know when I was young I would warez games and stuff. Every game except flight simulators. That was because they didn't come with manuals if you pirated them. I bought those. Nowadays I've matured (at least I like to think so) and I buy all my software. I simply hate opening up a new game and just seeing a cd jewrel, no manual or anything except a registration card (Microsoft Motorcross Maddness). Paper manuals are a great way to add value to your package. I know I havn't bought a Microsoft game since I got ripped off like that. (That and I don't have Windows anymore). It seperates yourself from others when you give your consumers a good deal and treat them right.

Not until HandHeld Ebook exist

[xtremex]

There's still the Toilet factor..(reading books and manuals on the bowl) and the Train factor.. It's just not convenient to fire up a laptop or even the PC to read a book or manual. Until HandHeld Ebooks which can read PDFs are a common thing, will print manuals be dead.