Printing user manuals

Before you print a user manual you will probably want to modify one of the standard print manual templates supplied with Help & Manual for your own needs. These standard templates provide a basic framework for your user manuals and PDF documents but they contain a number of elements which you will want to change, like the content of the cover page and introduction and so on.

Key Information

A maximum of 6 TOC levels are supported in printed manuals. If you have more levels than this (which is not recommended) they will all be displayed on the same level of the published TOC. Levels below level 6 will not have headings in the body of your text.

Follow the instructions in Using PDF templates to create or edit a PDF print manual template.

Once you have created a personalized print manual template you can use it as often as you like, both for your current project and for other projects.

It's a good idea to store your edited template in your project directory. This keeps all the files associated with your project together and makes your project more portable.

1.	Select Print Manual in the Application Menu and then select Preview...

2.	Select the printer you want to use in the Printer section at the top of the dialog (the printer driver is needed to generate the preview).

3.	Select the print manual template you prepared in Step 1 in the Print Manual Template: field. Use the button to navigate to and select the template file, which has the extension .mnl. A set of standard templates can be found in the \Templates\pdf folder in the Help & Manual program directory.

4.	Select any Include Options appropriate for your manual. The default selection here is Print Manual and you will not need to change this unless you have made use of include options in your project. (See Conditions and Customized Output for more details on include options and how to use them.)

5.	Set the other options in the dialog as you would like to have them, then click on OK to display the print preview.

You can jump to individual pages in the preview by entering page numbers in the box at the top of the preview widow.

1.	Open your project and select Print Manual in the Application Menu.

2.	Select the print manual template you prepared in Step 1 in the Print Manual Template: field. Use the button to navigate to and select the template file, which has the extension .mnl.

3.	Select any Include Options appropriate for your manual. The default selection here is Print Manual and you will not need to change this unless you have made use of include options in your project. (See Conditions and Customized Output for more details on include options and how to use them.)

4.	Set the other options in the dialog as you would like to have them, then click on OK to print.

1.	If you only want to print or preview individual chapters or topics select them first in the TOC with the mouse. Use Ctrl+Click and Shift+Click to select multiple topics.

2.	Then follow the instructions above and select Selected Topics in the Include Options: section in the Print User Manual dialog.

Eliminating cover page, TOC etc.

When you use this method the cover page, TOC and other additional pages defined in your print manual template will also be generated. To prevent this just make a copy of the template and edit it to disable all sections except the Topics section. Then use this "topics-only" template for generating your "quick output".