Catch 22 and Soft Copy
There’s a fundamental irony in putting documentation on-line which is that lot of the same people who need to use manuals are exactly the same people who are least comfortable interacting with them on-line.
On-line documentation is vastly easier to update and gives users the ability to search it instantly, but it also has significant drawbacks — not everybody has access to on-line sources or knows how to use them. Sometimes there’s no substitute for holding a manual in your hand.
So what’s the solution? What kinds of products and services lend themselves to on-line documentation? Also, from a writers perspective, what are the pros and cons of writing for on-line use compared to print?