Computer Application Operating Instructions

The Manuals Machine Author/Editor provides exceptional productivity and high-quality results for developing fully-illustrated system instructions:

top-down approach enables the instructions for a process to be structured into an outline before detail is added screenshots can be captured and dropped into the outline narrative can then be added, and screenshots captioned as required supporting materials such as reference data tables or checksheet forms can be kept in separate pages and hyper, accessed by hyperlink from the process instructions stylesheets provide house styles and branding, and ensure consistent visual quality across all pages.

All of the system instructions for an application such as order entry and processing can be assembled into a Volume, which will be extremely convenient and fast in use - the web browser technology employed by The Manuals Machine is much more responsive for large illustrated documents than traditional approaches based on Word documents and PDFs.

You can include extracts from system supplier documentation in PDF or other formats along with your own content. If control sheets are used for the process they can be incorporated in the Volume as PDFs, immediately accessible from the operating instructions by hyperlink. The blank control forms can be printed on demand, and completed by the operator as the procedure is performed

Policy and Procedure Manuals

Much procedure and policy documentation is simple text, bullet points and diagrams. The Manuals Machine Author/Editor enables these to be produced quickly and with a consistent high quality appearance. Author productivity is high: no need to worry about formatting or using complex tools. House styles and branding are supplied by external stylesheets and are not embedded into the manual pages at all, and can be customised by an editor without touching any of the copy. During review, changes and corrections can be applied and checked instantly.

Diagrams and flowcharts can be prepared separately using the tools of your choice and saved as image files such as JPG or GIF. Unlike Word documents and PDFs the illustrations don't have to be embedded into the page file - the browser technology used by The Manuals Machine Reader inserts the current version of an illustration or diagram when the page is retrieved. All of the procedures for a workgroup can be assembled into a Volume, which can be provided with Table of Contents and Alpha Index - think of a book with a chapter for each topic area such as expense claims, records filing, complaint handling, or whatever. You can also choose Keywords and generate indexes under these.

You don't have to rework your existing documentation to incorporate it into Manuals Machine Volumes. Existing materials such as Word documents can be converted to PDFs and used as-is.

Because the Volumes are physically 'lightweight', they can be delivered quickly over WAN or internet, or can be copied to laptops or CD-ROMs. No software installation is needed to read them, as they are delivered by web browser technology.

Training Manuals

Training Manuals benefit from plentiful screenshots and other illustrations even more than the operating instructions for the subject area.

You can also include multimedia content such as sound and video clips into yout training materials.

Fax Filer

You can use The Manuals Machine to organise highly-accessible long-term filing of faxes received by your incoming fax software.

if the fax format cannot be viewed in Internet Explorer, convert received faxes to TIF or PDF Carrier Pages can be used to define the indexing rules a single fax can be indexed and organised under multiple headings you can add the fax into several chapters (such as by suppliers, subject, year/month/day) annotations can easily be added alpha index and keywords can be used to organise the faxes

Once packaged in this fashion the faxes can subsequently be located, viewed and printed without having to install any fax client software on the user desktops.

IT Technical Documentation

System Tech Doc

The Manuals Machine is ideal for your development and infrastructure staff to prepare technical documentation. Productivity is high because they don't have to worry about appearance, only content. Consistent and high-quality "House Style" appearance is provided by stylesheets.

Because the web browser technology lets you include lots of screendumps and other images without suffering performance hits, all the right illustrations can be included.

The technical documentation can also incorporate PDFs, to include vendor documentation, or reference information found on websites and which can be captured by "printing to PDF".

Relational Database Documentation

The Manuals Machine is outstandingly well-suited to Relational Database. It supports all the types of content that comprehensive documentation for your database might require: tabular content to present the table structures and show sample data narrative text content for descriptive material graphical content for entity-relationship diagrams PDFs to include extracts of the database server documentation, or the application vendor's manuals. text files to store setup and query scripts.

PDF Organiser

If you've downloaded a large collection of product or technical documentation as PDFs you can use The Manuals Machine to organise these into a Volume with Table of Contents and Indexes. You can add synopses to be shown in the contents listings, and you can use The Author/Editor to prepare additional pages, to provide a seamless information resource of the PDFs plus your own notes. At SMH Systems we use The Manuals Machine to organise collection of web pages that we've discovered, that relate to specific technical areas. When we discover useful reference pages we print them to PDF, then use the Author/Editor to generate Carrier Pages, write a synopsis, and add them in to the chapters of a reference Volume. Seriously useful!

Log File Organiser

Many software applications write their activity and event logs to simple ASCII files, and create a new file every day. You can use The Manuals Machine as a simple but effective organiser for these, with a year/month/day Table of Contents for quick access to the log for any date. Manuals Machine TOC files are a simple XML structure which is documented on our website. You can use a script to add a new day's files into the Logs Volume and create a TOC entry, there's no need for Carrier Pages. There's more info on this, and a sample script that can be used for IIS log files, in the tech doc on our website.

Popup Help Screens - Easier to Build than CHM

Building an application and need to provide Help Screens? Now there's an alternative to Windows Compiled Help. If you've used any of the CHM tools please try out The Manuals Machine and check our claim that it's: more convenient to use much quicker for authors simpler to build well illustrated pages, that can include screenshots well suited to loading help on demand from the internet inexpensive You simply build the Help Screens as pages of a Manuals Machine Volume. You add into the Volume a special Help Screen Version of the Manuals Machine Reader, and you arrange for your application to launch this Reader when help is requested.

You can select the initial page according to your own context-dependent rules, and pages can be provided with hyperlinks to enable the user to navigate to further details. If the Reader is already running, the display will be changed to the help page that is newly requested.

The screenshot above is an example of Author/Editor help. The same Volume is the User Guide for The Manuals Machine Author/Editor and is also the source of all the on-demand Help Screens:

• when you open the User Guide as a Volume, you'll see full Volume packaging including Table of Centents and Alpha Index
• when you click the Help button for any Author/Editor or Admin Package feature, the Help Reader will open (if not open already) and display the correct page for the context.

Resource Tracking

Many smaller business use Excel spreadsheets to maintain simple lists of assets, but it's not practicable to include images.

By using The Manuals Machine you can prepare a much more useful register that can include digital photographs and scanned documents, such as purchase receipts.

At SMH Systems we use The Manuals Machine to track the dozens of product codes that are need to install the various software that we use. A mix of scanned CD covers, and product registration details received by email or printed to PDF from vendor web pages. Instantly available if re-installation is required.

User Guides and Help Desk

Help Desk and FAQs

The Manuals Machine is ideal for preparing reference information for Help Desk:

• you can organise large amounts of content, including PDFs as well as Manuals Machine pages
• the pages can be amply illustrated with screenshots, diagrams and photographs - without impairing performance

• ideal for 'how-to' and FAQs, which can be far more useful and user-friendly if illustrated
• the content can easily be kept up to date, as pages and illustrations can be added and edited on the fly using the Author/Editor
• in corporate environments it's practicable to have both Help Desk Operator and their customer looking at the same screens at the same time - the operator can ask them to open a Volume and navigate to a page before talking them through an issue

This last point means that the Help Desk calls can often be closed more quickly, because once walked through to the instructions the customers can then often help themsleves. So Help Desk productivity can be increased while perceived service level improves. This same performance isn't readily achieved with other environments such as Lotus Notes.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Whether you're installing software, setting your preferences, or trying to use a feature, you'll a most certainly have to step through a number of screens, and choose options and enter the right answers at each stage.

The Manuals Machine is an ideal way to capture this information and keep it for instant reference. It's just so simple to capture screenshots and incorporate them into Manuals Machine pages. And unlike Word documents, they don't become large and unwieldy when filled with illustrations. You can also include ASCII text modules, such as sample configuration files, or SQL scripts that can be copied-and-pasted for immediate use.

Because The Manuals Machine requires no software installation at all to use the reader, it's available to all users on the corporate network. This means that a Help Desk Operator can ask a caller to open the same Volume as being used by the Help Desk, and refer to the same page while the operator talks them through the process.

Product Information, Catalogues and Registers

You can use The Manuals Machine to develop product information manuals and reference books, which can be fully illustrated and provided with comprehensive indexes for quick use in the field.

Applications could include:

• product catalogues
• installation instructions
• usage instructions
• warnings and side effects
• parts lists
• and many more

This information could be delivered from a web server, copied to notebook computers, or distributed to mobile workforce on CD-ROM or other media. You could put both product information and business procedures into separate Volumes on the same CD-ROM, to provide one single reference source.

Personal Projects

Recipe Books

Every house has its recipe collection - acquired over years or decades and a wonderful mix of scribbled notes, newspaper cutouts, photocopies, recipe cards from the market, product wrappers, you name it. If you have a scanner you can use The Manuals Machine to turn this pile of paper into a colourful and well-indexed book of recipes. You can: use Carrier Pages to provide synopses and to define the Table of Contents and Indexing that you require, and soon your collection of recipe papers turns into a professional-looking book. scan a batch of pages from your collection then use the Content File Importer (a tool in the Administration Package) to generate the Carrier Pages for each of these. use the Author/Editor to convert your handwritten notes to text pages with the details of your own recipes. You'll find that Manuals Machine tables are very convenient for lists of ingredients, and there's a template on our website. As well as using the Alpha Index you can classify by keywords such as 'beef' or 'lamb' plus 'curries' or 'casseroles'. You can then use The Manuals Machine to find the pages that match the materials that you have on hand and the preferred method for cooking.

Finally, when you prepare one of the recipes, you can use your digital camera to photograph the masterpiece and include this in your book as well!

Holiday Albums

Remember those holiday albums we used to build, with photos, postcards, tickets and other souvenirs all pasted into an album with our own notes and captions.

You can use The Manuals Machine to build an online album - include your digital photos, and scan the other stuff!