What This Guidebook Contains

1 – About Readers and Manuals – covers the different types and forms of manuals and the people who use them, including how manuals are read, benefits of good manuals, documentation hierarchies, combination manuals, and online manuals.

2 – Development Process – covers the whole process of writing a manual from beginning to end, including deciding what type of manual you should be writing, planning the manual, writing and reviewing drafts, and reviewing and approving the final draft.

3 – Structure and Organization – covers the different ways you can structure and organize a revisable manual, including text hierarchy and headings, dividing the manual into modules, different methods of organizing information, numbering systems, cross-referencing, and online linking.

4 – Standard Contents – covers the standard sections at the front and back of manuals and their online equivalents, including the title page, Cataloguing in Publication (CIP) page, table of contents, list of figures, index, introduction, glossary, and appendix.

5 – Page and Screen Design – covers page and screen design, including the use of templates, headers and footers, heading attributes, typefaces and type sizes, typographic conventions, line spacing and justification, and page breaks.

6 – Methods of Presentation – covers the alternatives to narrative text (writing in sentences and paragraphs), including when to use bullet lists, tables, step-by-step procedures, illustrations, and other forms of graphics.

7 – Writing Style – covers what plain English is, sentence length and structure, choosing words, choosing verbs, avoiding inappropriate references to gender, organizing information, level of detail, writing generically, capitalization, consistency and parallelism, the importance of punctuation, writing for online reading, and using styleguides and style sheets.

8 – Writing and Production Software – covers the various software tools available for creating print and online manuals, using your word processor effectively, working with styles and templates, generating the table of contents and index, inserting cross-references, formatting tips, Web authoring software, other types of software, and organizing and protecting computer files.

9 – Printing, Binding, and Distributing Manuals – covers the various ways of producing print and online manuals, methods of printing, preparing a camera-ready copy, printing specifications and quotations, 3-ring binders and divider tabs, distributing copies of the manual, and online publishing.

10 – Maintaining Manuals – covers techniques for maintaining print and online manuals, the role of the manual, responsibility for revisions, how often to revise, why it’s best to revise whole sections, content of update pages, updating online manuals, documenting your update procedures, and training staff on updating procedures.

Writing Styleguide – contains style guidelines, rules of grammar, usage rules, marks of punctuation, typographic conventions, capitalization rules, and other quick-reference information organized alphabetically by keyword.

Dictionary of Plain English – contains an alphabetically organized list of ‘big’ words and clichés and their plain English equivalents.

Using the Manual Templates – contains instructions on using the templates that are provided with this guidebook.

Binders and Divider Tabs – contains a binder capacity table and a guide for determining the size of divider tabs.

Bibliography on Writing Manuals – contains a list of publications covering subjects of interest to manual writers.