2   Development Process

Producing and Distributing the Manual

Once the manual has been approved, you’re almost ready to have it printed or converted online.

Indexing the Manual

The last remaining section is the alphabetical index. Don’t skip this important navigational tool—many people prefer the index to the table of contents.

If you’ve already electronically tagged your keyword entries in the word processor files, you can now generate the index. If necessary, the index can be circulated for review.

Printing the Manual

Now you’re ready to have your manual printed and bound. The method of reproduction should have been decided during the planning. If the manual is going to be digitally printed, you’ll need to prepare the disk files by printing to disk. If it is going to be photocopied or offset printed, you’ll need to prepare a camera-ready copy.

Don’t leave the design and preparation of the binders and tabs to the last minute. Depending on the bindery you use, binders and tabs can take up to five weeks to be made. Designing and getting agreement on the cover design can take even longer and must be completed before the binders can be made.

Before you can have the manual printed, however, you’ll need to decide how many copies you want printed. Order a few extras just in case. At the same time you can prepare a database of the names and addresses of those who will get a copy. You’ll want to be able to merge your database with cover letters and mailing labels.

Whether the manual will be printed in-house or by a commercial print shop, prepare written specifications setting out the following:

• number of copies
• paper size and colour
• paper weight and finish
• 3-hole punching
• binding method

For more information on printing, binding, and distributing the print manual, see Chapter 9.

Creating and Testing the Online Manual

Once the text has been approved, you can add all remaining sections to your online manual. You may have been adding them as sections were completed and approved, slowly building your finished manual.

Most Web authoring tools will automatically convert graphics found in the document into either . gifs or . jpgs, the two graphics file formats compatible with hypertext markup language ( html), the standard series of codes used on the Web.

Once your online manual is completed, test your links by systematically trying each one and making sure it goes where the link says it goes. Some Web authoring tools will do this for you. Also test your table of contents, index, search engine, and other buttons.

Test the online manual using the browser your audience will use. If you can’t be sure, test it with at least the lastest versions of the most widely used Web browsers. And test it at screen resolutions from 800 by 600 pixels to 1280 by 1024 pixels.

Once all testing is completed, copy the files onto the file server.

For more information on converting your manual to online form, see Chapter 8, Writing and Production Software.

Preparing Both Print and Online Versions

If you plan to create and maintain both a print and an online version of your manual, you’ll normally have to wait until the print version is completed before converting it to online form. Conversion software is available that will automatically convert your word processor files to html for display on your Web site.

The conversion process should be more or less automatic, with little manual html coding required. Otherwise, you’ll end up keeping two sets of electronic files—one set for the print manual, and a second set for the online manual—effectively doubling the amount of work to revise and maintain the manual. Creating and maintaining the print manual in a word processing or desktop publishing program and then converting it automatically to online form is called single sourcing since both versions are generated from the same source files.