In a bind + free templates

[John Sgammato]

I just finished a fabulous doc set!
But now I'm in a bit of a bind...

My company has grown, and so has its documentation. For the most recent
release, I had to redesign the printed documentation to address some
issues that had arisen as our product line has grown. The docs are all
done in unstructured FM with some bits in Adobe Illustrator or InDesign
and online help in WebWorks ePublisher.

The current doc set comprises 5 manuals, 2 getting started guides, 4
quick-reference cards, and a binder with cover and spine inserts. The
manuals are 7"x8.5" (half legal size) and the QRCs are 7.5"x8.5" so they
act as dividers between the manuals. The manuals are Wir-O bound so they
can fold back on themselves; this has been extraordinarily popular with
our reader base of IT professionals. Then 1/2-inch in from the binding
the manuals are 3-hole drilled to fit the binder. 

The getting started guides are skinny little saddlestitched 5.5" x 8.5"
booklets that fit in pockets inside the binder. 

The whole package looks quite sharp, and it is functional, too. The
binder serves as a home for the manuals, any of which might be used at
different times by different people within an IT office. It keeps our
logo visible on the bookshelf, and makes it easy to find our books
(which had been a problem because the Wir-O binding looks like every
other book on the shelf). 

So what's the problem?
The new binders do not fit in the newly redesigned shipping box for our
product. The guy who led the redesign is the VP Development. He used to
be my boss and knew about the binder project, but somehow never
remembered to talk to me about the doc sets, which are supposed to go
into the box. Now the binder is too fat by 1/4" so it cannot go into the
box. Obviously I can't push back on him. 

Customers who upgrade from a previous version can get the full docset in
the binder because they are paying for the shipping anyway - they are
not affected by the product box issue because they already got their
product. But new customers get everything in the box, and the binder
doesn't fit. The chief does not want to add a new box to the
deliverables, so shipping the docset separately has been nixed.

So I have about 500 binders that I cannot use. I am willing to pass them
on at cost to anyone who can use them. I will gladly provide the
templates for everything (the manuals (FM), the book covers and binder
cover (AI), the QRCs (FM), the getting started guides. The templates are
set up for single-sourcing, too - I output the FM files as print, online
pDF, and three WebWorks Help projects, and I have to rebrand it all for
a partner when it is finished. You can have the WebWorks templates, too.
These are good, solid, attractive templates that work well.

If you need some or all of the binders, or if you want the templates for
the docs that fit the binders, please contact me offlist at
jsgammato at imprivata.com. 

John Sgammato
Principal Technical Writer
Imprivata, Inc.
[v] (781) 674-2441

www.imprivata.com

"OneSign is single sign-on for the rest of us, with an innovative
technology that makes adding almost any application a snap,
doing away with manually scripted login procedures, and saving
time and money." 
- Information Security, "Products of the Year", 2006