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Re: Presentation of detailed images in a User's Guide?
Subject:Re: Presentation of detailed images in a User's Guide? From:"Lisa Bronson" <Lisa -dot- Bronson -at- ipaper -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Fri, 7 Mar 2003 08:44:18 -0600
Hi Elizabeth,
I write about mechanical equipment, not software, and I do strictly hard
copy documentation. However, you may be able to benefit from a couple of
methods I use in my manuals, so here goes.
Sometimes I want to show a specific part in an assembly, yet want to give
reference to where that part is located on the machine. To do this, I use a
drawing of the whole machine and put a circle around the area where the
part is located. Then I draw a line from that circle to a larger circle, in
which I put a magnified view of the part.
The second method I use might work better in your case. When I put an
entire air system schematic on one page, it becomes very difficult to read
the text. To make it usable for the reader, I number each section, make a
detail view graphic for of them, and make a table telling what part of the
machine each section pertains to and which figure contains the "detail
view" of that part of the schematic.
In your case, you could divide each interface or report into segments, then
enlarge each segment to give the details.
I will send you a sample of either of these methods if you would like to
see how it looks.
Hope this helps,
Lisa B.
~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~
Lisa Bronson
Associate Technical Writer
Evergreen Packaging Equipment
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
319-399-3239
~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~
"They say the seeds of what we will do are in all of us, but it always
seemed to me that in those who make jokes in life the seeds are covered
with better soil and with a higher grade of manure." -- Ernest Hemingway
Anyone out there who can point me in the direction of online or hard copy
user's guides whose authors did a nice job of presenting detailed images of
interfaces or reports?
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