Who is the Help+Manual training for?
This foundation training course is designed for novice and intermediate users of Help+Manual who are writing Help for software applications, PDF manuals, or policies and procedures. No previous experience of working with Help+Manual is required—however, familiarity with the Windows operating system is a prerequisite.
Though this is an introductory course, even users with many months' experience of using Help+Manual have benefited from the training by discovering new features that they were unaware of; and by learning a range of tips, tricks, and more efficient ways of working with the product.
How will I benefit from this Help+Manual training?
After taking the training course, you will be equipped to use Help+Manual 9 more efficiently and effectively. Your new skills will enable you to get the very best from this powerful Help Authoring Tool. During the course, you'll learn how to create professional-looking Help and printed documentation from a single source, and will discover a range of tips and tricks that will enable you to save time. You'll also have an opportunity to try some of the more advanced and powerful features of the tool, such as Skins and HTML Templates.
Training course duration
Two days
The course duration can be adjusted to suit your specific requirements. For example, if you would like to explore some of the advanced features of Help+Manual in more detail, or if you would would like to practise some of the new skills with your own project files under the supervision of the trainer, then we would increase the duration by one or more days.
Help+Manual Foundation/Intermediate course outline
Key Help concepts and fundamentals
- What makes an online Help system effective and easy to use?
- Overview of the online Help project life-cycle
- Planning an online Help system
- Comparing and contrasting the various output formats
- Microsoft HTML Help
- Webhelp
- e-Book
- What is a Help & Manual project?
- Difference between compressed and uncompressed projects
- Important Help & Manual concepts
Guided tour of the Help & Manual user interface
- Ribbon-based interface and toolbars
- Application button
- Project Explorer
- Topic Tabs
- Configuring the user interface
- Navigating a Help & Manual project
- Creating a new project
- Adding new topics
- Creating a table of contents (TOC) structure
- Editing topics and their properties
- Importing HTML files
- Importing Word documents
- Organising topics within folders
- Creating an additional TOC
- Managing TOC links
- Filtering the TOC display
- Editing topics and their properties
- Publishing projects with multiple TOCs
Working with styles and style sheets
- Understanding Text and Paragraph Styles
- The principle of inheritance
- Creating and modifying custom styles
- Working with list formatting
- Three different ways to insert hyperlinks
- Understanding and inserting Link Lists
- Including references to figure and table counters
- Selecting the best image file format for your needs (.GIF, .JPG, or .PNG)
- Understanding the Project Search Path
- Capturing and resizing screenshots
- Shortcuts for inserting images
- Understanding and using numbered figure captions
- Creating and using Image Styles
- Adding hotspots to images
- Inserting video
- A comprehensive strategy for indexing your topics
- Adding keywords to topics as you're creating them
- Capturing and resizing screenshots
- Using the index tool
- Tips and shortcuts for indexing more efficiently
- Creating and editing tables
- Understanding and using numbered table captions
Generating and publishing your Help output
- Setting options for Webhelp and PDF
- Setting up a default HTML Template
- Generating (compiling) the Help
- Producing reports for project management
- Practical strategies and tips for fixing broken links
- Understanding the concepts of Skins
- What changes when you apply the supplied Skins
- Creating a new custom Skin
- Working with Variables
- Overriding the values of variables using Skins
- Working with Snippets
- Working with Conditional Text and Build Types
- Understanding the principles of context-sensitive Help
- Working with programmers to plan context-sensitive Help
- Creating a Map file
- Importing a Map file
- Assigning Map IDs to topics
Working with the Print Manual Designer
- Introduction to the Print Manual Designer user interface
- Understanding how to work with bands
- Creating and modifying tabs
- Setting up the Tables tab
Introducing your trainer
Matthew Ellison has over 30 years of experience as a user assistance and eLearning professional in the software industry, and is a qualified teacher (PGCE) and Certified Technical Trainer. He is also a Certified Instructor for MadCap Flare and EC Software's Help & Manual.
Over the past 25 years, Matthew has trained more than 1500 authors how to develop online Help and eLearning. He has also been a popular speaker at conferences on eLearning and user assistance throughout the world since 1997, and has covered a diverse range of topics from context-sensitive Help design to electronic performance support systems.
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