Re: Making manuals, using Word

["Lisa Wright" <liwright -at- uswest -dot- net>]

> Can anyone point me to instructions for using Word to make manuals with
> TOCs, indexes, chapters, etc.? Have such instructions been written up? Do
I
> have to use "sections" in a multi-chapter, Word-based manual? Is a book
> always just one single file, or is it composed of several files, like it
is
> in Frame?

I had to learn over the years to make Word do many things it was not
directly intended to do, including creating multi-chapter manuals of over
200 pages. I used separate files to keep file size down, and I did not use
section breaks. Section breaks would make it easier to manage the TOC and
Index, but it depends on how large a file you want to work with (graphics)
and what kind of response you want (tables bog down Word a bunch, if you've
got a lot of them). I also didn't use the master documents feature because
it didn't work for the document we were doing--however, that meant that I
had a TON of manual updating to do.

I had a single TOC for the whole thing. I didn't have an index, but I
suspect you could do it the same way if you dig hard enough. I cannot give
you the exact instructions because I don't have the electronic document in
front of me any more, but I can give you a rough idea of what I did and you
can try things out.

Basically, in a separate document (though I don't see why it couldn't be
part of the first chapter), I created a TOC entry with a bunch of field
switches. The switches designated the TOC levels to look at and had the
document file paths of the documents from which to build the TOC.

{ TOC \n "1-3" \* MERGEFORMAT }

TOC = build a TOC
n = heading levels "n-n", in this case 1-3

Then, and this is the part that I can't exactly remember, I managed to
designate the path. I had to repeat the paths for each document. I do
remember that paths have to be designated with a \\ because a single \
denotes a switch.

Make sure you get a very good third-party user's guide for Word 97 or 2000.
I had a good one for Word 95 by New Riders. I don't know if they have one
for 2000. Make absolutely certain that there is extensive discussion of both
field codes and switches in this book. Look in the index to ensure that they
care enough to index the individual codes and switches. (Refer to previous
threads on indexing.) DO NOT get the Word 97 book by Cue publishing. They do
a crappy job of documenting the codes.

Also, check the Word 2000 online help. I'm really quite impressed with it so
far (hard to admit).

I am chasing down one of the documents where I did this but no promises.
Hopefully this can at least put you on a track (not sure it's the *best*
track!) for creating cross-document references.

> And most importantly -- is there, out there somewhere, a variety of
existing
> Word templates for manuals -- chapters, indexes, glossaries, appendixes

I don't know about templates, but Word does have predefined formats for
TOCs, indexes, etc. that you can start from. You can modify any of them.

Good luck!

Lisa Wright
Technical Writer
PeakEffects

>
> And most importantly -- is there, out there somewhere, a variety of
existing
> Word templates for manuals -- chapters, indexes, glossaries, appendixes
and
> all that? If so, can someone be so kind as to steer me in the right
> direction? I've found only one manual template -- it came with Office
2000.
> I looked at the Office Update site and found nothing.
>
> I've seen the template question posed on this list before, and checked the
> archives, but never found an answer or summary. Maybe there is no answer!
>
> Thanks a million,
>
> Beth (FrameMaker user) Kane
> Senior Communications Specialist
> PersonalGenie Inc.
> California & Arizona
> kanerb -at- concentric -dot- net
>
>
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