Newbie question

Please post all questions and comments regarding Help & Manual 7 here.

Moderators: Alexander Halser, Tim Green

Post Reply
WrightStuff
Posts: 25
Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2022 9:45 am
Contact:

Newbie question

Unread post by WrightStuff »

Hi everyone, newbie here, this is my first post, I have just discovered Help & Manual, apparently my company used to use it about 5 years ago and it turns out we have a license for version 7. It seems that the tech writer left and they forgot about it and went back to writing in Word and Notepad. I've used Madcap Flare and Help & Manual looks similar, any thoughts on this?
Stephen Thompson
Technical Writer
User avatar
Tim Green
Site Admin
Posts: 23156
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2002 9:11 am
Location: Bruehl, Germany
Contact:

Re: Newbie question

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Stephen,

There are similarities to Flare but also differences. If you have HM7, check your current version with Help > About. If it's older than 7.5.4 Build 4760 download the current installer from the old versions section here and run it to update:

https://www.helpandmanual.com/downloads.html#oldver

It would be good to familiarize yourself with the documentation to get started. You can find a number of tutorials and sample projects in the Welcome section of Help & Manual 7 at the top of the Project Explorer on the left. Just click on the Get Started buttons at the top of the Welcome section and explore a little. In addition to this, try clicking in the Help tab. There you will find direct access to specific sections of the help on the subjects you are looking for.

You will find that the very extensive help included with Help & Manual is organized as a training course and ongoing reference for using the program in your day-to-day work. You can get the basics to get you started in these sections:

* Introduction
* Quick Start Tutorials

This will give you a basic grounding. After this you can consult the following sections when you start work in earnest:

* Basic Working Procedures
* Publishing

Once you feel comfortable with the program you can start looking at the More Advanced Procedures and Reference sections. You will also find a number of tutorial projects and other useful resources in the Examples folder in Documents/My HelpAndManual Projects.

When you start producing PDF documents you will need to refer to the PDF & Printed Manuals section of the help. In addition to this, the Manual Designer program for designing your PDF layouts comes with its own extensive help that includes a detailed, step-by-step tutorial.

When you have questions or problems you can always contact support at support@ec-software.com, or post a question here on the forum. However, please do perform a search first, because you'll find that most questions have already been answered. 8)
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

Private support:
Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
Post Reply