A Guide to Publishing User Manuals (Wiley Technical Communication Library) [Paperback]

Ken Whitaker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 12, 1995 | ISBN-10: 047111846X | ISBN-13: 978-0471118466

Technical Communication

A Total A-to-Z guide to creating professional-quality user manuals on time, on budget—on your PC

You don't need to pay an outside specialist a small fortune to produce your user manuals for you. Let leading technical communications expert Ken Whitaker show you how you can create your own professional-quality user manuals at a fraction of the cost—on your PC.

Writing for readers with little or no desktop publishing experience, Ken guides you through the entire process, from organizing the material and writing the documentation to designing and printing the manual. Chapter-by-chapter, step-by-step, he creates a sample user manual, using the leading Windows-based desktop publishing applications—FrameMaker and Corel Ventura. Along the way, he supplies you with loads of insider tips and tricks for producing the most readable, attractive manuals possible, on time and on budget. You'll learn how to:

• Research the product, organize the material, and plan the manual in a layered, object-oriented approach
• Write very readable, user-friendly copy
• Use fonts, templates, graphic formats, and page layout techniques
• Take professional screenshots to complement your text
• Produce professional drawings and images even if you're not an artist
• Use sophisticated techniques like sideheads and table numbering
• And much more

Let A Guide to Publishing User Manuals show you how to write, design, and produce professional-quality user manuals without the professional fees.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Targets those on a tight budget who are producing user manuals with whatever desktop publishing they currently have installed on their PCs. Provides indispensable advice in order to create a manual from start to finish with emphasis on organizing the document, administering the documentation process, style guidelines, desktop publishing techniques, producing graphics, drawing, and screen shots. Includes a wealth of diagrams, templates, and screen shots.

From the Back Cover

Technical Communication

A Total A-to-Z guide to creating professional-quality user manuals on time, on budget--on your PC

You don't need to pay an outside specialist a small fortune to produce your user manuals for you. Let leading technical communications expert Ken Whitaker show you how you can create your own professional-quality user manuals at a fraction of the cost--on your PC.

Writing for readers with little or no desktop publishing experience, Ken guides you through the entire process, from organizing the material and writing the documentation to designing and printing the manual. Chapter-by-chapter, step-by-step, he creates a sample user manual, using the leading Windows-based desktop publishing applications--FrameMaker and Corel Ventura. Along the way, he supplies you with loads of insider tips and tricks for producing the most readable, attractive manuals possible, on time and on budget. You'll learn how to: Research the product, organize the material, and plan the manual in a layered, object-oriented approach Write very readable, user-friendly copy Use fonts, templates, graphic formats, and page layout techniques Take professional screenshots to complement your text Produce professional drawings and images even if you're not an artist Use sophisticated techniques like sideheads and table numbering And much more

Let A Guide to Publishing User Manuals show you how to write, design, and produce professional-quality user manuals without the professional fees.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (December 12, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 047111846X
• ISBN-13: 978-0471118466
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,111,489 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ken Whitaker has been leading software maniacs for more than twenty-five years. He has extensive software development leadership and training experience in a variety of technology roles and industries. He has led commercial software teams at Software Publishing (remember Harvard Graphics?), Data General (engineering manager in the "Soul of a New Machine" days), embedded systems software companies, and enterprise software. For some reason, he loves to write and communicate (especially to make complex subjects "Jethro-simple").

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Format is very important to create a good manual, November 10, 2000

By 

Masatoshi Suzuki (France) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Guide to Publishing User Manuals (Wiley Technical Communication Library) (Paperback)

To start a software company and develop the product in UK, I looked for books about writing user manuals. Other books focus on how to write good contents. But this book focuses on how to create a good format. In the process of the manual production, I had to make a decision whether I create the manual internally or ask any technical documentation companies. By interviewing the technical documentation companies, I found that I had to provide contents anyway. However, the structure of contents depends on how to format the manual. By adopting the exact manual structure suggested in this book, I first defined the format of the manual , wrote the contents by myself and asked a technical editor to correct them for mistakes in grammar. By using this process, I could write a manual with a short time and less confusion. This book made me realize that the user manual writing is like a database development, putting the right details of information into the right layer of the document (Chapter, Sub chapter, note, etc). And I had never realized that I had to use so many fonts to write a nice looking manual and that there are font designers who spend their life to create new fonts. In next edition, It will be helpful if the book provides a enclosed diskette which contains templates.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Publication to date on developing Desktop Publications, July 6, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: A Guide to Publishing User Manuals (Wiley Technical Communication Library) (Paperback)

If you wish to self-publish and you use Framemaker or Ventura software, this book is for you. I've read numerous books on the subject, but none so detailed (and accurate). Takes you from Style Designs and Page Layout to Graphics and Final Publication. This is written for the DTP user who is looking for help in using the software as well as tips to develop a professional publication, whether it is a manual or book. A ten star rating without question