Creating a Printed Manual

HelpSmith allows you to compile your help project as a Printed Manual document with a Title Page, Table of Contents, and Alphabetical Index. A Printed Manual can be printed directly from the Print Preview window or saved to a file that can be opened in MS Word, Adobe Reader or other applications.

Compile a Printed Manual

1.On the Project tab, in the Project group, click Compile.

2.In the Compile Project dialog, in the Output Format box, select Printed Manual.

3.If necessary, select build tags and other options that you want to apply to this compilation.

4.Click OK.

Note: You can also access the compilation dialog by pressing F9.

Quick Compilation with the Previous Options

You can skip the Compile Project dialog and apply the previously used options including the build tags that were selected for this output help format:

1.On the Project tab, in the Project group, click the lower half of the Compile button.

2.In the popup menu, under Quick Compilation, click Printed Manual.

Print a Printed Manual

After you have compiled a Printed Manual, you can print it directly from the Print Preview window.

1.In the Print Preview window, click Print.

2.In the Print dialog, select a printer.

3.Set other print options such as the Print Range, Number of Copies, etc.

4.Click OK.

Save a Printed Manual to a File

After you have compiled a Printed Manual, you can save it to a file that can be opened in MS Word, Adobe Reader, or other applications.

1.In the Print Preview window, click Save.

2.In the Save As dialog, open the destination folder where you want to save the document.

3.In the Save as type box, select the document format that you want.

4.In the File name box, enter the document file name.

5.Click Save.

Customize a Printed Manual

You can customize page size, page orientation, appearance, and other settings of the printed manual document. Also you can define whether the Title page, Table of Contents page, or Index page should be generated automatically or use the content of a help topic.

The following topics describe different categories of the Printed Manual-related options:

Known Issue: Using a Table-Based Template Cuts Offs the Page Content

For the Printed Manual format, it is not recommended to use a table-based template for topics: in case the height of topic content is greater than the height of the printed page, the content can be cut off at the bottom of the page. Despite that for a regular table HelpSmith attempts to put a large table row to a new printed page, it is impossible to do when the height of the table row is greater than the height of the page itself.

To avoid such an issue, you can replace a table-based template with a template that does not contain a table:

1.On the Project tab, in the Topics & Templates group, click Add Template (under the Add button).

2.In the New Template dialog, you can select a pre-built template. For example, you can select "Clean & Simple".
Remark: Please note that you will be able to customize the template appearance after you have added it.

3.Click OK.

4.Set your new template as the default template for Printed Manual:

4.1.In the Project Manager, under the Templates node, right-click on the new template.

4.2.In the popup menu, select Use As->Default Printed Manual Template.