Anyone ever Written a Software Manual?
 

Been told on a couple of occasions that I should write an AutoCAD book - I and I think I'll give it a go.

There are quite a few manuals out there but all have the following downsides.

1. Far too technical for beginners.
2. Too American-ised (all use inches rather than millimeters)
3. Heavy going to begin with.
4. Tend be set up as reference manuals rather than training oriented.

Think I can do a better job - but any advice on layouts etc would be appreciated - also handy utils for screen capture or anything that might prove useful.

cheers.

I happen to be the poor soul who has the task of writing the documentation for our software range.

I get the odd complaint that it's too technical, hmm, well, the product is for network security and administration, so if you don't know how to setup a server, you probably should not be administering the network! lol

When you say layouts, do you mean the actual page design? or how the guide should be laid out, as in TOC, getting started, basic setup, detailed setup, that kind of thing?

As for utils, have a search on tucows or download.com, for screen capture, you could simply use 'print screen' and then paste into a graphics app and crop as desired, but that might not be ideal. I'm on a mac so i just use command-shift-4, then press space to grab a specific window.

Layout is done in Adobe Indesign, mainly for it's direct PDF output, plus the fact that TOC's can become links when PDF is generated, and that helps the users, of course, that's not of much use if this would be a printed document :D

when you finished writing it give me a shout il proof read it for you, could do with brushing up on me autocad skills lol

ps. put plenty of examples in it for the reader to work through showing each step using lots of screen shots. I had a book years ago to help me with it but, it was to writing orientated, very hard to put down and pick up at a later date.

My aim at the moment (or at least my idea) is to produce a tutorial where at the end the user has drawn up a full set of house plans for Local Authority Submission.

As for layout - I'm writing bits in Word, although might swap to Adobe Pagemaker (have a copy of InDesign somewhere). Just wondering about page size? I've set the page setup to match the usual software manual size.

Autosketch
 

If you can, look at the Autosketch (v.6) manuals. These comprise a 'Getting started guide' which is basically a series of 28 x 2 minute tutorials covering the basics. This is backed up by a 'User's guide' which is far more comprehensive and technical. There is also a quick reference card. I think this is a good arrangement giving the user the level of advice that they require (but is 3 times the work to do properly:().

I would imagine that writing a serious AutoCAD manual is a life's work for a team:( You really need to be writing for the next release now.

messiah, I'll be your dog.

I use Acad 2000 pureley for saving drawings as R14, as R14 is the only version I can print with. printing is 2000 is far to complex for me so I just save as R14, however, I have managed to get my crosshairs to 100%, so I am not a complete dummy :D

YOUR CHALLENGE:

post in this thread, a set of instructions in R14 for me to draw and dimension a rectangle that represents 20Mx15M.

I'll post up a screenshot to demonstaret your talents, becuase all ACAD tuturials I have read to now have been binned after page 3-far to techie for me, I need it in english.

Writing porn stories is easier and will earn you more money ;)

porn stories - see above. :D


or autoCAD

il try and dig out some of my notes and hand out from college & uni aswell, although som may be on microstation if theyd be any help to you

mj - at an particular scale - or just in model space?

model space solution -

1. select the rectangle button, or type in "REC" then return
2. click anywhere on screen when the command line asks, then for your second point type in "@20000,15000".

thats your rectangle done - to dimension it.

3. select linear dimension button or type "DLI" then return
4. press return again and you'll get a pick box - so you can select the side of the rectangle you want to dimension, after selecting it - move the cursor away from the rectangle slightly and click the mouse again to place the dimension.

repeat 3 & 4 for other sides.

altering your dims so you can read them is another matter. Give me a shout if have any probs.

I tend to use the keyboard a lot for commands and your experience in manuals being too techie is my reason for having a go myself.

M - Do NOT use Pagemaker, it's totally outdated and an evil bit of software. The old management here loved pagemaker, bunch of fools, so I was forced to use it, once they had buggered off I changed everything to use Indesign.

As for size, well, our install guide is A5, the rest of the docs I have set at US Letter, simply as this will fit on A4 and the silly North American paper sizes :D

The 'too techie' thing is a bit of a problem, but it's a trade off between making it too simple, and maybe, just maybe, making some think it's a 'dummies' guide, then again, some of those types of guides are not too bad.

It does depend on the software, some software, and I'd rate CAD in this area, is complex and thus sometimes you just cannot simplify some things. I have the same problem, there are certain aspects of our software that are very difficult to simplify, due to how they operate, it's one of the reasons we have good TS, as 'speaking' about the aspect is a heck of a lot easier than writing it, or reading it from written documentation.

BTW - Good luck with writing the thing.

Is InDesign the replacement for Pagemaker? I've got an "cough" copy "cough" of Pagemaker (5?) somewhere... never used it and probably won't either.

At present I'm compiling a list of Commands & System Variables in Word, but shouldn't be difficult to transfer later on - So I'll give Adobe's site a look for InDesign, Not got down to the nitty gritty of page design yet, just scribbling ideas down for examples and how (I think) they should be presented.

see, I'm lost already :(

I can do certain things in cad, like add dims, copy&paste parts and move em about etc, its just the whole model/paper space thing I can't grasp.

The creating new drawings bit eludes me, suppose thats the downside of doing all my drawings in Word - to scale BTW:)

Model Space & Paper Space do tend to trip up a lot of people but once it clicks in your head it's surprisingly simple.

Model Space (MS) is where you do all your drawings, you don't need to pay too much attention to how your drawing is set out - just create what you want to draw. Don't bother with messing around with scales - draw everything full size.

When you're ready to print out what you've drawn you switch to Paper Space (PS). PS is basically your "paper" what's going to come ou of your printer (hard eh?) and you then arrange what you've drawn in MS onto your paper or "layout" using a viewport - which you can make any size and you give it a scale so that it displays how you want it to - and you can have as many viewports as you want.

It's kind of like having an infinite piece of paper which you can draw on - which is your Model Space, and then you place your "Real" paper on top of it - and then cut holes in it to see your Drawing underneath - and these holes can be modified to display your drawing how you want.