I finally found time to work with the Print Manual Designer in Help & Manual.

This is a feature that provides a great deal of flexibility. As with any tool, I strongly recommend that you read the online Help first, and work through Help & Manual's tutorial for this.

If you have graphics that will be part of the DTP (usually logos for company branding), do make sure they are resized appropriately, and saved as BMP, EMF, or WMF files.

Then, design and publish. It really is that simple. On my first few efforts, I was able to create something I could use within 30 min. I do admit to spending an hour or so reading documentation and studying how the original template was built.

I like the way each element of a manual has its own design section. I can quickly add or remove a section, and then get all the "boiler plate" text in place. (That means... no section breaks as in Word, and all the related problems--wonderful!).

Saving the template is incredibly easy. I can save a custom template in the same location as all the default templates. Then, whenever I have a project that needs that template, I can reuse it.

I need to work more with this option, but the Manual Design capabilities will meet most of my DTP needs.

By the way, authoring inside of Help & Manual is much easier than many programs I've worked with.

I love the way I can create and edit styles. I don't have to hassle with code or style sheets. I was able to make customized numbered and bulleted list formats that work wonderfully.

I was also able to create a formatted table with no difficulty.

Finally, setting the output style for print vs online was quick and intuitive.

EC Software has definitely provided us with a tool that is going to be around for a while.