Re: Software Manual Organization

["Brierley, Sean" <Brierley -at- QUODATA -dot- COM>]

Hallo:

A lot depends on the amount of available time. For me, on an update, s/w
manuals typically fall into two categories: reference and application.
Reference manuals tend to be feature oriented, organized by menu
explanations. Application manuals tend to be task oriented, organized by how
the software is used. If I can, I prefer to include both with a software
product, or make the reference manual into on-line help and provide an
application book as a PDF and in printed format.

How relevant is your "theoretical" information and do most of your readers
need to see it. The importance of this information to the majority of your
readers might best indicate its location: in introductory chapters,
appendices, or a separate tome.

Bonne chance.

Sean
sean -at- quodata -dot- com

>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: Melonie Holliman [mailto:melonie -dot- holliman -at- TXEXMTA4 -dot- AMD -dot- COM]
>>>Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 1999 10:01 AM
>>>To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
>>>Subject: Software Manual Organization
>>>
>>>
>>>Howdy,
>>>
>>>I am reorganizing a software manual and the process has
>>>brought up an issue for me. Each manual I have worked on
>>>has had three types of info a user would need: an explanation
>>>of each menu and its items, how tos, and theoretical or
>>>historical information. In the last manual I wrote, it was easy
>>>to mix all three. In this current manual, the how tos tend to
>>>use more than one menu in each process so I have set
>>>them into another chapter. Right now, I trying to decide if
>>>I should merge the theoretical with the menu explanations
>>>or if that would be too confusing.
>>>
>>>To those who write software manuals, how do you tend to
>>>organize it (considering the types of information I presented
>>>above)?
>>>
>>>Melonie R. Holliman
>>>Technical Writer
>>>CPD Marketing
>>>Advanced Micro Devices

 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=