Owner's Manual Format

On 12/04/07 17:07, cavelamb himself wrote:
Mark Hansen wrote:

On 12/04/07 16:22, cavelamb himself wrote:

Mark Hansen wrote:

On 12/04/07 14:41, Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe wrote:


"Jim Burns" wrote in message
t...


What sucks is if the manual is required to be carried in the cockpit by
the
avionics certification or STC
(one of the other) Jim(s)


I would think it would be easier to find a place to stash a CD than a paper
manual.


Well, the CD will be a little harder to thumb through while in flight ;-)



--
Geoff
The Sea Hawk at Wow Way d0t Com
remove spaces and make the obvious substitutions to reply by mail
When immigration is outlawed, only outlaws will immigrate.






Print your own???



Did you read what I was responding to???

Yeah, Mark, I did.

But a printed manual is a lot handier.



For crying out loud, cavelamb. Jim said that (some) STCs required printed manuals.
To that, Geoff said that the CD would be easier to stash in the airplane.
To that, I said that it would be harder to thumb through the CD while in flight.

Do you get it now?

Sheesh.

On 12/04/07 17:50, Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe wrote:
"Mark Hansen" wrote in message
...
On 12/04/07 14:41, Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe wrote:
"Jim Burns" wrote in message
...
What sucks is if the manual is required to be carried in the cockpit by
the
avionics certification or STC
(one of the other) Jim(s)


I would think it would be easier to find a place to stash a CD than a
paper
manual.

Well, the CD will be a little harder to thumb through while in flight ;-)


Assuming, of course, you want to read it - as opposed to having it there
because it is "required to be carried in the cockpit by the avionics
certification or STC"...

:-)

Well, see - that's what I thought the joke was :-) I guess it didn't go
over too well with some though ;-(


--
Geoff
The Sea Hawk at Wow Way d0t Com
remove spaces and make the obvious substitutions to reply by mail
When immigration is outlawed, only outlaws will immigrate.

Full range of offering: Website download (historical and latest) plus a CD
with the product plus an offer of a printed manual for a fee.

Some people prefer to download rather than loading a CD. Plus, when I reload
my computer or buy a new one, I can never find the CD. It's gotta be on the
website.

They can print it themselves (on the office color laser jet for no fee).

For those that are less comfortable, they can order the printed copy from
you.

--
-------------------------------
Travis
Lake N3094P
PWK
"RST Engineering" wrote in message
...
We've been absorbing costs for about five years and just can't afford to
do it any longer. Two choices. Increase price or decrease costs.

For those that require a manual in the airplane, it is cheaper for you to
print it out on your inkjet than for us to use a copy service.

Jim

--
"If you think you can, or think you can't, you're right."
--Henry Ford


"Gig 601XL Builder" wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote in message
...

RST Engineering wrote:

What aviation electronic product has a 10-20% bump in the cost of the
product because they have a manual?

Because a lot of our customers are technotards.

Jim

--
"If you think you can, or think you can't, you're right."
--Henry Ford


"Richard Riley" wrote in message
...

Why bother with the CD? Just post PDFs on your website. Your cost
for the bandwidth of one customer downloading is cheaper than the cost
of duplicating, handling and shipping a CD (not that it's high either
way)

SHUUURE Travis.

Ever run a company? Every put a product out? If so, I'll take advice from
you.

Produce the CD. Produce the printed manual. Produce the website download.
You want to calculate the cost of the stuff you recommend? More than the
cost of producing the print manual to start with.

Jim

--
"If you think you can, or think you can't, you're right."
--Henry Ford


"Travis Marlatte" wrote in message
. net...
Full range of offering: Website download (historical and latest) plus a CD
with the product plus an offer of a printed manual for a fee.

Some people prefer to download rather than loading a CD. Plus, when I
reload my computer or buy a new one, I can never find the CD. It's gotta
be on the website.

They can print it themselves (on the office color laser jet for no fee).

For those that are less comfortable, they can order the printed copy from
you.

--
-------------------------------
Travis
Lake N3094P
PWK
"RST Engineering" wrote in message
...
We've been absorbing costs for about five years and just can't afford to
do it any longer. Two choices. Increase price or decrease costs.

For those that require a manual in the airplane, it is cheaper for you to
print it out on your inkjet than for us to use a copy service.

Jim

--
"If you think you can, or think you can't, you're right."
--Henry Ford


"Gig 601XL Builder" wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote in message
...

RST Engineering wrote:

What aviation electronic product has a 10-20% bump in the cost of the
product because they have a manual?

"RST Engineering" wrote in message
...

Produce the CD. Produce the printed manual. Produce the website download.
You want to calculate the cost of the stuff you recommend? More than the cost
of producing the print manual to start with.

I don't have a lot of experience producing CDs, but I can tell you that
generating and posting a .pdf to the Internet is a 15 minute job. If you don't
have the bandwidth on your own site, there are some excellent archive sites
(some free) that you can bookmark from your own webpage. As for generating
..pdfs, my HP all-in-one machine does that, or you can buy any of several $39.95
..pdf suites. Also, I understand that Open Office (free) will generate a .pdf.

This is not a big deal!

Vaughn

? They can build kit avionics but they can't open a pdf file and print
it (if they so desire)? I think having manuals on a company website is
a real bonus. CDs can get misplaced or lost in moves, etc. It's always
nice to know you can always go to the "manufacturer" via their website
and retrieve a lost manual quickly...


RST Engineering wrote:
Because a lot of our customers are technotards.

Jim


--
Scott
http://corbenflyer.tripod.com/
Gotta Fly or Gonna Die
Building RV-4 (Super Slow Build Version)

A lot of "manuals" that I have on CD are just pdf files anyway. So, as
long as you have it in pdf format anyway, it's just as easy to put it on
your website. Alternatly, start a Yahoo group and post the manual in
the "Files" section. Provide a link to the Yahoo group on your website.
This way you don't pay for downloaded bytes like you might from your ISP.


Vaughn Simon wrote:

"RST Engineering" wrote in message
...

Produce the CD. Produce the printed manual. Produce the website download.
You want to calculate the cost of the stuff you recommend? More than the cost
of producing the print manual to start with.


I don't have a lot of experience producing CDs, but I can tell you that
generating and posting a .pdf to the Internet is a 15 minute job. If you don't
have the bandwidth on your own site, there are some excellent archive sites
(some free) that you can bookmark from your own webpage. As for generating
.pdfs, my HP all-in-one machine does that, or you can buy any of several $39.95
.pdf suites. Also, I understand that Open Office (free) will generate a .pdf.

This is not a big deal!

Vaughn






--
Scott
http://corbenflyer.tripod.com/
Gotta Fly or Gonna Die
Building RV-4 (Super Slow Build Version)

"RST Engineering" wrote

Produce the CD. Produce the printed manual. Produce the website
download. You want to calculate the cost of the stuff you recommend? More
than the cost of producing the print manual to start with.

My suggestion would be to do away with the printed manual, like everyone
else seems to be doing.

Send a quick start piece of paper, like the others, with links to where they
could find documentation online, using perhaps some of the suggestions
others have put here.

You can probably do that for free, with minimal one time investment of your
time. Put it all in PFD, and that can be the exact same file you put on a
disk to send with your product, so the non internet people can find your
manual to print, if and when they need to.

Don't sweat it, above all. If the print is killing your bottom line, then
your choice is made, IMHO. Do away with it.
--
Jim in NC

Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe wrote:
"Jim Burns" wrote in message
...
What sucks is if the manual is required to be carried in the cockpit
by the
avionics certification or STC
(one of the other) Jim(s)


I would think it would be easier to find a place to stash a CD than a
paper manual.

But it would not be vast majority of PICs. Now you could say. "OK, then have
it in both formats. one for those that have a CD reader in the cockpit and a
paper one for those that don't." Then you miss out on any savings gained
from the CD because the per paper manual cost drop significantly as the
volume go up.