Revisions to Manuals

[thibault]

Dynon Support,

Now we are on Rev D of the Installation Manual and Pilot's Guide. Should have brought this up before, but the manuals were going through major changes the first few times. Now they should be more stable, so here goes.

What if, for Rev E. and beyond, there is a stronger way of pointing out the changes.

For example, the revision history could list exactly which pages change for the described items. Even better would be to do that and then have change bars beside the actual paragraphs, figures, or tables that change.

It gets really old having to read every page each time to find all the subtle differences. Most word processing programs will do the change bar highlighting automatically, if you turn it on. I would do it myself, but I don't have a way to "difference" two PDFs.

Thanks.

 

[Ron_B]

I agree 100%.

 

[jakej]

It's been pointed out before recently to Dynon - I'm sure they're smart enough to be doing something about it.

Jake J

 

[paxhia]

I'll ask the same question since there is no response, How about adding a page revision and line revision letter. I have notes in my manuals and don't like reprinting each time a manual revision comes out. At least tell us the pages that changed so we can just print those pages. Any help on ID'ing changes will be appreciated.

 

[jakej]

Any changes are listed in the revision notes however, IMO, Dynon will eventually probably scrap the supplied paper manuals - it's just too expensive & difficult to manage & has an impact on the environment. These manuals are now getting many more pages as the product develops with the lastest SV Install Manual version topping out at around 264 pages, Garmin 430W 205 pages & the Garmin GTN750 at 210 pages. Note : Garmin has not supplied paper install manuals for a few years now.

Then there is the issue of time lapse from purchase of any avionics to actual completion of installation, sometimes this can take years. In this, and every case, obtain the latest revision before starting the install & checking for any updates while doing the work.

Jake J

 

[preid]

I think what many are asking is simply to add page numbers to what was added to the revisions list.
In Dynon's defense, however, I looked through a few of my other manuals and there is most cases, less information given than Dynon gives. In none of the manuals is there any indication of where to even locate what was updated, actually in one manual it does not even tell the customer that some features were improved.
I tend to look what was "Added" and I usually can locate where to find that section,Audio- search for audio and one will locate all that information, user waypoints are going to be under the Map sections.
My point is, yes it is nice to have the information given to us but it is not a norm to have this and it can be easily located with a search in Adobe reader.
I suggest a Thread be opened that allows users to put their information in. aka-"Added: Audio output/alerts"- located on install man 4-16 to 4-17

 

[swatson999]

What I'd like to see are redlines from one revision to the next, so I can *quickly* find where on a page the changed information is...there's no reason that both page number change listings and redlines couldn't be done. After all, that sort of thing is what computers are really good at...even the much-maligned MS Word can do this.

 

[dynonsupport]

It gets more complicated than this, since even a red-lined version would then need to be edited for clarity. It would mean maintaining and editing another whole "changes" version, and we don't want to delay releases. Our goal is to have the best manuals in the market, and as up to date as possible. But we'll keep looking at ways to make the changes more clear, without spending a ton of time.

 

[swatson999]

It gets more complicated than this, since even a red-lined version would then need to be edited for clarity. It would mean maintaining and editing another whole "changes" version, and we don't want to delay releases.  Our goal is to have the best manuals in the market, and as up to date as possible.  But we'll keep looking at ways to make the changes more clear, without spending a ton of time.

I meant just the sidebar lines that indicate where a change has been made, not actually redlining the deletions/insertions.