Application (Not a Markup Language) for Producing

Question

Can anyone recommend a program to create user manuals with? Not a markup language (like LaTeX or DocBook) but more something interactive like Scribus. As I'm not the only one that will update the manual the software should be something that's easy for a novice to pick up but still has some advanced features (like linking in text from external sources/tables, handling masterpages/themes etc.).

Regards, Oscar

Answer 1

Adobe InDesign CS5.5 is much better at cross references and long documents than earlier versions. It is very powerful and relatively easy to learn and use. The feature set is very rich and the more you learn about it the more you can do with it. It supports very powerful XML features and can import and export XML as needed. It can also map Styles to Tags and Tags to styles allowing you to create your XML in an automated fashion if you simply use a full set of character and paragraph styles. I have used the program for years and produced multiple projects from books to one-off advertisements. It is a graphic design tool, but has support for many aspects of book and manual production. I recommend it if you are more concerned with graphics, images or illustrations. InDesign support a wide number of import and export formats.

InDesign CS5.5 has added and improved support for both interactive content and export for EPUB (electronic book) and Adobe's Digital Publishing Suite (DPS) electronic magazine formats.

Framemaker is an excellent tool for books, manuals and long technical documents. It is a bit harder to learn than InDesign but has a richer set of tools for building variables and running headers and footers, if you have the time and inclination to learn how to use them. It also has a very robust XML feature-set, but I have not used it personally.

Unfortunately, Framemaker suffers from lack of support for graphic design. The color system is based very kludgey and spot (PMS) colors are hard to define. Simple things like adding a stroke color and fill color are rudimentary at best. For example, you still can't select a stroke color that's different from an objects fill color. The program is intended to output to laser and inkjet printers and not really to printing presses.

One feature that is really cool is the ability to apply master pages based on the Paragraph styles appearing on the page. The paragraph/illustration numbering in Framemaker is superior to any other program that I have ever used. But it is also difficult to learn and use.

Both programs support output to PDF and PostScript file formats and can generate hyperlinks and interactive content.

Answer 2

I've heard good things about FrameMaker. I've not used it myself, but have had it recommended to me for just such an application.

Answer 3

I agree with Ollivier that using DocBook (or LaTEX) is the sanest approach to have easy conversion, sane formatting, nice version control.

Happily, you can try to have your cake and eat it too with a DocBook editor.

Try the ones on this list and see if any satisfies your needs (I haven't used any).

Answer 4

I would recommend "Help & Manual" from EC Software. You can create a printed manual, PDF, Windows help file (CHM), and HTML web based help from a single source document.

Answer 5

We are using "Help & Manual" from EC Software and it works quite well. Our authors are spread through the U.S. so we share our content files via a hosted SVN server to manage version control. On each workstation we use Tortoise SVN to stay in sync. The product is extremely easy to use and productive.

Answer 6

Word (or your favorite word processor)

I make all my user manuals (not to be confused with user HELP files) in Word. Then I can determine if they need to be in PDF, RTF, DOC or even converted to HTML. To solve the multi-user updating issue, I store the file in Source Control which handles all those fun things.