How To Create A User Manual In Powerpoint

admin

StepShot has recently introduced its newest and most advanced product to quickly create manuals and video tutorials

Transform stress and anxiety associated with documentation into productivity
with this insanely easy software to create user manuals, online guides,
help files and other types of technical documents.

Sep 21, 2016 Click on the object you want to use as a hyperlink (or create a shape with no fill and no outline and place it over the area) Go to 'Insert' on the navigation ribbon and click 'Hyperlink' Select 'Place in This Document' and select which slide you'd like to hyperlink to (see right) Click 'Ok' and you're good to go!

Unleash Your Power with Our Software for Creating Manuals

Screenshots are produced on every mouse click as you go through the workflow. It allows you to be less distracted from the procedure and spend less time on creating training manuals.
As soon as the whole process is captured in screenshots, you can start editing them right away. A rich variety of tools is available in order to help you visualize your technical documentation. You can crop an image, frame or highlight important regions, blur secure information and much more.
Share ready step-by-step manuals and reference user guides with your colleagues. With the help of StepShot Manuals, publish your help files to the professional workspace or export it as a PDF or Word file. Make use of the default document templates to style or brand your IT documentation.

Explore the Features of Our Software for Creating Training Manuals

Process Automation

StepShot automatically chooses an active window to be captured.
Capture info from a full screen to show the wider context in a guide.
Every mouse click produces a separate screenshot – no additional effort is required.

Practical Functionality

Crop unnecessary fields and leave only necessary information.
Add the text to your screenshots using a text box.
Easily add different geometrical shapes to an image to communicate your ideas clearly.

A Wide Range of Formats

Export your guide as a ready-to-use PDF file.
Share your user guides in a Word document.
How
No matter what website platform you use, easily upload your guides as HTML files.

Integration with Professional
Platforms

Publish your document to a website or blog on WordPress.
Contribute to your online corporate wiki with newly-created instructions and manuals.
Upload clear and accurate how-to guides to your company’s knowledge management system.
Love utilizing our user manual creation software to build runbooks that help explain complex procedures and operations.
Like to document troubleshooting procedures to reduce time spent on repetitive issues with the customers.
Find it highly important to capture software requirements, bug reports, and procedures to ensure the quality knowledge transfer and software delivery.

Try our newest and most advanced tool to quickly create manuals, guides and video tutorials

Think about the last time that you consulted a manual. Did you start at the beginning and read the whole manual? Probably not. You probably looked first at the index or the table of contents. Once you found the right page or topic, you probably scanned the page first to see if it contained the information you needed. This is how most people read manuals.

No one wants to read your user manual. No one will read your user manual from front to back savoring every word and phrase. Technical documents are not novels. Readers want user manuals to answer their questions quickly so that they can get back to whatever they were doing.

A successful user manual provides users with quick answers to the questions that they might have about a particular product. Users searching for information don’t want to know about the latest and greatest features of a product. Users want to know how to complete tasks. Technical writing focuses on user tasks and the concepts that support the tasks.

Below are some practical tips on writing user manuals that will help you to write content that adapts to the needs of users.

Think like a user

When writing a manual, you need to put on a “user’s hat” and think like a user. You should have a good understanding of your users so you can understand the information they need to know, their background, and their knowledge of the product. Once you think like a user, you can write content that the users need to know.

If you have the opportunity, you will find it very useful to watch users actually using the product. When you watch users interacting with the product, you will get a better idea of what the users need to do, how they approach each task, and when they might use approaches to tasks that are unexpected.

Use active voice

Active voice emphasizes the user and is easier to read and understand. In most cases, especially in user manuals, you should use active voice. In active voice, the subject and verb in the sentence are clear. In passive voice, the subject is unknown and is acted upon by something that is not known or not stated. Passive voice uses verbs that include a form of “to be”.

Compare the two sentences below.

Passive voice: Supplies that will be needed to complete this project include a hammer, a screwdriver, and a rubber mallet.

Active voice: To complete this project, you will need a hammer, a screwdriver, and a rubber mallet.

The sentence that uses active voice makes it clear that the reader is the person who will complete the action. By using the active voice, you will make your writing more clear, concise, and direct.

Focus on the reader

User manuals should always focus on the reader. When writing information that involves the reader, such as instructions, use “you” and the active voice. Speaking directly to the reader will:

  • Reinforce the message that the information is intended for the reader
  • Pull readers into the document and make it relevant to them
  • Help to avoid passive voice by focusing on the reader

Compare the two sentences below.

Lack of reader focus: There are three options for viewing content in the editor.

Reader focus: You can choose from one of three options for viewing content in the editor.

The sentence that uses “you” focuses on the reader and makes it clear that the reader is the person doing the action. You should aim to use “you” in your writing to make the content more relevant to the reader.

Write clear instructions

How To Make User Manual

The primary objective of user manuals is to help users complete tasks. Below are some guidelines to help you write clear and concise instructions.

Create User Manual Online

  • Use numbered lists for instructions unless the instruction includes a single step.
  • Use parallel construction for each step. Usually, you should start each step with an imperative word, such as “Enter”, “Click”, “Select”, etc. When you start each step with an imperative word, you are providing the user with clear cues on the required action for each step.
  • Avoid using a system response as a step. For example, don’t say, “The Info dialog window opens” as a step. You can incorporate system responses (when necessary) in the step that initiated the system response or you can mention the system response at the beginning of the following step, e.g. “In the Info dialog window, …”.
  • Provide just enough information so that the user can complete a task or understand a concept. Omit any extraneous information that the user does not need to know. Concise content makes it easier to understand concepts and tasks.

Establish standards

When creating documentation, there will be areas where there may be more than one way to spell a word, refer to an object, caption graphics, punctuate sentences, lay out a page, and organize information. These are just a few of the decisions that writers must make when they create documents. By establishing standards, the writer’s job becomes much easier since most of those decisions will have been already made.

How To Create A User Manual In Powerpoint Pdf

The Chicago Manual of Style and Microsoft Manual of Style are two popular style guides. If you use an established style guide, you may still need to establish some specific guidelines for your writing project. As you encounter any issues with styles, you can create your own additional style rules that address the specific needs of your project.

How To Create A Manual In Powerpoint

If you would like to become a technical writer, you may want to consider registering for our Professional Technical Writing Course. It is an online course where you will learn how to write and revise instructions, technical reports, and software manuals (key technical writing documents).