atw: Re: Help from users (power or super or experienced or whatever) Re: Time for another debate?

My greatest teacher about writing help systems and contents and indexes
for software have been the abominable help provided by complex software
like PhotoShop, Corel, and (now greatly improved) AutoCAD. Some of the
S^$t written and rubbish structures created by the "technical writers"
at the above companies is appalling. I try to avoid doing stuff like
they have. However, I have to say the latest version of AutoCAD help is
incredible compared to past efforts. Beginners can find useful
information and functionally use the software to do things now. Before
you had no chance. But they have spent a fortune on the help. And it
shows too. Adobe and Corel? Puh.

One of the other problems with many of these software programmes is that
assumed knowledge is required too. You need a base level of graphic
design terminology before diving into Photoshop and Corel, just as you
need to understand the discipline, parlance and standards of technical
drawing or architectural drafting before opening AutoCAD. Try and
"print" a document in AutoCAD. It's easy, as long as you understand you
are "plotting!" Don't forget to set the output to "monochrome", "Layout"
and so on btw.

I had the same issues Geoffrey described on Saturday last with Corel -
which made me look like a complete idiot in front of a client, when (I
think it is a bug actually) I tried to do something I used to do without
thinking and it didn't work. Bugger now I have to think. Could I check
it easily in the help - not a chance - using what tool? The bloody
eyedropper tool... Where was the method? Buried under something so
totally titled something else it was like finding a needle in a haystack
stuck to the proverbial hen's tooth. I tried the logical way - go to the
contents and look for the eyedropper tool. Not there. Huh huh huh. I'll
use the index. Took me to a series of links about where the damn tool
was - well, like, and what it is supposed to do! I already knew that.
What I want to know was why it didn't work the way it used to and how to
get it to work RIGHT NOW! 

But there were no direct links to "how" to use it. Why didn't they
include a reference to "Using the Eyedropper tool?" Who does that stuff?
Why isn't de-sexing them legal? I stumbled on to using the eyedropper
tool instructions (and the new setting you have to manually make) with
some lucky stroke of genius under pressure off-key logic - the
equivalent of diving into the haystack, eyes closed and flailing around
with the lice biting me until I felt a prick from the needle. Panic by
any other name.  With my client looking on laughing. At me.
AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH. People laughing at me and not taking me seriously
was why I gave away being a comedian and became a technical writer.
Finally there is no laughing. 

Another experience this week was a request for help with inserting
images into Word. This came in on the Word-PC list. Some of the answers
were very useful but not especially sensible. Some of the answers were
simply going to cause other problems. Nowhere in the MS Word Help does
the use of a paragraph style for pictures actually get mentioned. Yet
this is the only known way on earth to actually reliably and quickly get
Word to keep any damn pictures you insert into a document in the place
you want them with any confidence in the long term, and prevent every
other item in the document not to be affected like text over-running it
or going underneath it or the image just plain moving somewhere... Not
only that, no-one mentioned the paragraph style either, just methods and
reassurances that if you use Word's picture layout positioning tools
you'll get what you want. Eventually. 

Yes, you can eventually, but at what cost? It is costing someone the
money in hourly rate to pay you to fiddle-ar%e around with picture
placement dialogs and measuring using rubbery figures and clicking
vaguely illogical terms until you find some combination that does what
you want, yet a Word paragraph style will suffice, takes minutes to set
up and gives years of reliable operation. No, not perfect from a
typesetting or graphic design or "I want a jolly by wrapping text"
paradigm but IT WORKS. 

Ultimately as technical writers, we want (as well as our users just in
case you'd forgotten them) what "works." Bosses want what "saves" them
money. Nothing in those two inverted comma sets mentions "quality". Get
over it. Using a paragraph style to embed pictures in a document does
both and hints at quality - that's a value add in my cash book. But
where is that said in MS Word Help?  

When I go to help, what I want is an ANSWER that works. One that I
understand, can use quickly, reliably and then move on to the next
reality induced crisis. When I go to email lists, I am getting
desperate. Thankfully, we all manage to help each other out sometimes.
What a pity that the vacuous people writing help systems for the big
software companies are not a little less isolated.

Thank god for vallium. Although that is an addiction, not an answer...

Tranquilised regards,
Warren 
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