boggen
Elite Member
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2011
- Messages
- 3,824
- Location
- Trivoli, IL
- Tractor
- SSTT (Sideways Snake Tain Tractor) and STB (sideways train box) tractor, dirt harvester
Quote:
Originally Posted by boggen
i have checked prices for different manuals over the years. and the main manufacture $$$. but a quick web search reveals any were from 50% to 400% discount. within a few months of release of a given manual. and either be in paper form. or scanned into a pdf document.
I hear your claim, but I think you are dreadfully mistaken. Show me a link to a single technical manual that reveals a 50% to 400% discount "within a few months of release." I am very aware of one website that has technical manuals in PDF format (Tradebit) at very reasonable prices, but their list of manuals is very limited. I'm pretty good at math, but a 100% discount is $0. I don't even know what a 400% discount means. Do they pay you money for taking manuals off their hands?:confused2:
example the 555c TLB. when i got prices it was around $400 calling around to local businesses, when i looked up on internet i could obtain it for $100
**DOH!** ok just saw my error in math. at time was not thinking math.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by boggen
ya it takes a few extra calls, or a couple more minutes to double check things to make sure all is legit and legal.
This kind of statement is the typical attitude of somebody who has no idea how manuals are produced. On what basis do you make such a ridiculous claim? Those of us who are/where professionals know just how wrong your statement is. Even if everything works perfectly, the formats of a printed document and a web document are different. For the printer, all color pages are in a separate file from black and white. Foldout pages are again in separate files, grouped by how many pages of foldout and again whether they are color or b&w. All of this is done after making a page-by-page check of the conversion. For a 2000 page manual, the check alone may take several hours work by more than one person. You just cannot trivialize this process by making a statement as you did. You do not know what you think you know.
legal / legit. double checking to see if someone is illegally scanning in pages into pdf format or some other format for digital and trying to make a quick buck.
as far as 2000 page manual. no i have not produced manuals and like for items of re-sale. but i have had to copy, scan 2000 pages to deal with "extra copies" of paper work for single jobsites doings. so given parties would have all copies of all paper work. and i can understand need for different files at times. it is very time consuming process.
Quote:
Originally Posted by boggen
i can understand IT / computer department / web department / and like. may be reluctant to do conversions. when getting into different formats. and more so different version numbers of software.
IT Departments do not publish documents or do conversions. IT departments manage computers, software licensing, management and financial software databases, networks, websites, and and run help desks. They DO NOT publish documents. They may be subject matter experts who work with publishing professionals to produce internal documents and job aids, but they do not publish. Once the materials are formatted for web distribution, they will be forwarded to the IT department for website installation, but they do not touch the content nor the format.
i am with and against your above statement, pending on formats. the IT department would be able to do (script level) conversion (at code) to do conversions. vs trying to (copy paste) into different desktop software. that can remove a lot of mumbo jumbo.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by boggen
when i go to various mechanic shops, i do not see shelves of a mini library of shop manuals, but i see staff go to a computer.
Yes, the techs use online manuals because it is cost-effective and quick. If it were not cheaper and more efficient to do it by computer, you'd see the techs still working with paper documents. What this has to do with a marketable product for sale vs. free is beyond me. The fact that the tech uses a computer and you do too is like saying a dog and cat are the same because they both have four legs.
cost effective. for regular folks. paper is not cheap nor is ink. when ya either buy couple thousdand dollar copier/scanner to taking boxes in to a local copy place. it costs money. same goes for different digital files. to have them printed out. yes it costs for labor charges and manpower to sort through and make everything. but when it comes down to cost of paper and ink alone. it is a different story all together. and prices i see on internet for paper copies of manuals are mostly for price of the paper and ink for those copies. rest is a small fee back to re-saler for there time. and small fee back to manufacture. why should regular folks have to pay the extra cost of paper and ink?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by boggen
how many times have you seen "way to small of print" in paper form vs if it was digital were you could just hit zoom/unzoom option to read things in a bigger print.
Do you know what scalable text is? Do you know the difference between bitmap and vector graphics? Do you know that if you have a horrible looking bitmap document, that when you scale it up you just have a big horrible looking bitmap document? Do you know that some bitmap documents are huge in size (file size) and that's because they are produced at a their maximum resolutions and then scaled down to view a page at a time on a computer screen?
if documents are already in computer format, hopefully a text version. with linking to original picture files. or slightly scaled down versions. so pages do not have to go through a scanning software to figure out what text it is. there should be little problem of scalable text, and pictures.
example when folks post a image to this forum. the forum software auto re sizes the picture to (to lazy to double check picture size) i want to say 200x200 thumb nail pictures. that you can click on to enlarge. the enlarge picture comes from original uploaded file. if the resize picture was used. it would be a ugly ugly picture if re-enlarged.
it does not matter what format, bmp,jpg,png,tiff,(not about to list them all) format of pictures. yes i do understand.
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Look, I don't mean to insult you or become argumentative, but being a professional in the business made me feel I had to respond to your claims. I know you mean well and I largely agree with you that documents should be published in PDF format as often as possible. I just don't want you to make claims that are not true even though you may think they are valid. I hope I haven't offended you by my strong response. I don't mean any of this to be personal, but I admit to being blunt. I don't apologize for my facts, but I do apologize if I offended you.
no insult or like. i also do not want to be argumentative. but to me, i think they are very valid.
even for older tractor manuals. (folks do not need) text search option, in pdf formats, that would by pass (OC) scanning software to figure out text in documents. they do not need (sub-chapter book mark links on left). and i am saying using scripts, it is fairly easy once a IT person looked at a few script packages to take pages from different files, that may make up a manual. and insert all of them into a single PDF file. so it all displays correctly. without much effort. yes there is need to double check everything.
and trying to do conversions through desktop publishing software to me would be a joke. and cause more problems and head-aches. to say leave it up to the publishing staff. that may not know script / programming. there is a large difference and gaps of knowledge.
example www.imagemagick.org, is only one scriptable package out of many others out there on the market. and what is built into Visual basic, to C, C++, java, etc....
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after re-reading my words, i realize it might of seem like i took a stab at you, and that was not my intent. been there done that, and there are easier ways out there, it is just finding out what might work the best, which is normally the bottom line dollar. and to me, sending documents out to be redone for internet publishing to publishing department. vs sending documents to IT department, that would more likely know script level doings. would be a cheaper alternative.
