Help & Manual Forums

<snip> Personally, however, I almost always use TNT, which is now completely free for both commercial and private use and gives you many more options. 8) The Download page states Supported operating systems: Windows 95, 98, ME, NT 4, 2000, XP and Windows 2003 Server. Does that mean Windows 7 users ...

alamocha wrote:PDF Help files are nice because they can be printed better, searched and scroll nicely.

At our company we produce .chm help, but also generate the .pdf files in case our clients want a printed manual.

as it happens we've been working on radically improved ePub support just this week and it's going to be included in Help & Manual 6. The improvements are really massive, including full support for Apple iBooks on the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. This will make Help & Manual a full eBook pro...

Tim Green wrote:The DOC and RTF formats are deprecated...

Does that mean they will disappear some day? I use the RTF publish to send to reviewers so they can send me feedback with Track Changes turned on.

The first rule of documentation is probably "know your audience". You have to decide where to draw the line in terms of how detailed your instructions are. Do you tell them how to use a mouse? Do you tell them how to get on the internet? Do you tell them how to change their printer? If you...

For instance, in several places in my docs, I have to direct the user to the Printers and Faxes folder, which is "Devices and Printers" on Windows 7, and in Vista often not even on the Start menu - you have to go through the Control Panel unless you have added it to the Start menu yoursel...

You can save a second or two by just clicking in one of the cells in the last column and toggling the Lock Column feature off. That's a bit faster than selecting all the columns.

We don't currently put our help out on the web. Would Google Analytics also work through a web site that requires authentication to access?

Tim, a massive index of every word is a great idea! This would not go to the Help user but to the Help author(s). They could use the index to identify undefined, redundant and synonymous technical terms, words not in basic English, etc. Such concordance programs are available, even as freeware/shar...

I just noticed a similar problem in our latest build. Strangely, even though the .pdf build is missing the bullet symbol on bullet points, the .chm build is not missing the bullet symbols for the same document on the same build server. The .pdf builds on my local machine also are not missing the bul...

I just returned from vacation and tried your suggestion. It works, thanks! Of course, the new browser window that opens and plays the movie doesn't have player controls. The thorns and thistles on this assignment are numerous and deep.

Unfortunately, Swish Video does not import .swf files.

Tim, is there a variation of the special help window that works with eBooks? I'm thinking of getting around the annoyance of the Captivate swf starting to play right away by having a link on the tutorial page to a hidden page containing the video. That way the learner can read in peace and watch the...

I am in the process of converting some of our e-Learning materials to H&M (version 5.3.2 Build 1083). I have imported a Captivate .swf file into H&M using the Insert Movie command. When I generate an E-book and go to the page with the movie, it starts playing immediately and does not show an...

Have you used the PDF manual designer in Help & Manual? Yes. When we were considering upgrading from hm3 or moving to a different single-source authoring tool, the ability to customize the .pdf output in a somewhat WYSIWYG way was one of the deciding factors in staying with H&M. If yes, what...

Grammar is the perfect argumentation topic: A complex system with highly arbitrary rules with countless exceptions, all the rules and exceptions being controlled primarily by tradition and subject to ongoing change. The only better subject is possibly archaeology, where the paucity of hard data and...