#27488
Conciseness is Key to Good Technical Documentation
One of the most important and difficult parts of technical documentation concerns writing in a concise manner. Technical writing is different than writing fiction or magazine articles, where a mood may be set or--in some cases--where space must be filled. (People seldom buy thin books.)
Kurtus, Ron. School for Champions (2005). Articles>Document Design>Technical Writing>Minimalism
#23084
The default layout of the Pages pane displays a single column of small thumbnail pictures of the pages. The default is fine for most kinds of work when you have a document consisting of several pages. However, when working with a very large document, you might want to make the thumbnails smaller and increase the number of thumbnail columns to see more at once. If you have to be able to see the content of the thumbnails, you'll want to increase their size.
Baker, Donna L. PlanetPDF (2001). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat
#27658
Constructing a One-Stop "Answer Station" Website for Software Users
The web allows us to easily provide updated documentation to our users, but why stop there? There is more to making users successful quickly than just providing documentation. By creating a complete 'Answer Station' that is accessible from the application or product, we can not only direct users to that updated documentation, but we can also provide information about technical support, consulting, training, sales, etc. This article discusses writing a proposal for an Answer Station, determining content, working with other departments to gather information, designing the site, making that design work with an existing corporate website, dealing with tool issues, and finally, going live.
Bleiel, Nicoletta A. and Beth A. Williams. WritersUA (2004). Articles>Documentation>Web Design>Help
#28399
'Containment' is the effect where one or more elements is shown as part of a group or category, through a visual mechanism.
Hunt, Ben. Web Design From Scratch (2006). Design>Web Design>Document Design
#12948
Context-Sensitive Disaster: Designing the Difference Between Help and Print 
My first epiphany about online help struck while I was browsing through the latest release of a popular Windows program. After exploring for a few minutes, I stumbled across an interesting option that hadn't appeared in the previous version (let's call this 'option X'), and my curiosity was piqued. With the confidence of every naive Windows user, I hit the F1 key, certain that enlightenment was only a few words away. My optimism dwindled when I read the corresponding instructions in the online help.
#28739
Design is largely an exercise in creating or suggesting contrasts in an effort to convey meaning.
Rutledge, Andy. List Apart, A (2007). Design>Document Design>Theory
#20177
Controlling Line Breaks with the Hyphenation Penalty Slider
Adobe InDesign 2.0 introduced a new feature that you can use to fine tune the way lines break in any given paragraph. You'll find the hyphenation penalty slider in InDesign's hyphenation dialog box. This document is meant to serve as an introduction to this feature so that you'll understand exactly how it works and how you can use it to control the way your lines break within paragraphs.
Cole, Tim. Creative Pro (2003). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign
#28795
The Convergence of Web 2.0 with Help Documentation
This podcast talks about the convergence of web 2.0 with help documentation. It mentions examples of Web 2.0 sites, such as Flickr, Payscale, and Digg, and what help files need to incorporate these same Web 2.0 features.
Johnson, Tom H. Tech Writer Voices (2007). Design>Web Design>Documentation>Podcasts
#18347
Suppose you have a publication with set column widths. You may not want to reset your columns or drag out multiple guides just to create tables or gridded content. The guides and Step and Repeat features in Adobe® InDesign® 1.5 make it easy to quickly create a custom grid to structure your content. This tip tells you how.
Adobe (2003). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign
#22726
This video will show you how to make an eyecatching backlit display.
Hewlett-Packard. Presentations>Document Design>Streaming>Video
#22728
An introduction to how to create a magnetic sign for indoor displays.
Hewlett-Packard. Presentations>Document Design>Streaming>Video
#31136
Creating a Multi-Page Document Using AutoFlow
In this tutorial, we are going to create a simple layout for an existing text document.
Iowa State University (2001). Design>Document Design>Tutorials>Adobe InDesign
#27183
Creating a Template (Part I): The Basics
The natural tendency of most users of word processing applications is to create a document and use it as a model for future documents. That is, you format a letter the way you want all (or most) of your letters to look, save it, and then, when you want to write a letter, open this document and save it under another name as the starting point for your letter. In WordPerfect, until recently, this was the only way to create a template. Word uses a different approach.
Barnhill, Suzanne. Word MVP Site, The (2005). Articles>Document Design>Software>Microsoft Word
#22725
This video will cover professional banner design and layout and choosing the right material for the job.
Hewlett-Packard. Presentations>Document Design>Streaming>Video
#22727
Creating an Indoor Print on Rigid Substrate
Covers scanning a photograph, laying out the graphic, printing, mounting, and then a review of components.
Hewlett-Packard. Presentations>Document Design>Streaming>Video
#22724
Creating an Outdoor, Durable Event Banner
Takes you through each step needed to create a durable outdoor banner.
#15104
Creating Documentation that Shows 
Advocates using screen shots, text balloons, arrows, and scannable text to create picture-like documentation.
Eaton, Janet M.F. Intercom (2000). Design>Documentation>Technical Illustration>Screen Captures
#25034
Creating Interactive Documents for PDF
Learn how to add movies, sound clips, and interactive buttons to an Adobe InDesign CS document. When you export the document to Adobe PDF, readers can view movies, play sound clips, and activate buttons in Adobe Acrobat. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to add a movie and buttons that play, pause, resume, and stop the movie in the exported PDF document.
Adobe (2004). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign
#20479
Creating Interactive Documents for PDF
Learn how to add movies, sound clips, and interactive buttons to an Adobe InDesign® CS document. When you export the document to Adobe® PDF, readers can view movies, play sound clips, and activate buttons in Adobe Acrobat® or Adobe Reader®. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to add a movie and buttons that play, pause, resume, and stop the movie in the exported PDF document.
#22357
Creating PDF Documents from HTML Documents
In this topic, you will create PDF documents from HTML documents.
#31097
Tables make information easy to find and understand and are often used for illustrating comparisons among similar data. A table usually consists of a heading row and one or more body rows and may also contain a title.
McMurrey, David A., Jana Owens, Jacqueline J. Pulido and Thomas A. Moore. Illuminati Online (2004). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker
#24962
A form is usable when it builds an effective communication bridge between your clients and your data entry staff. A usable form is readable, concise, and contains appropriate pictures and graphic elements. The steps in creating a usable form are the following: (1) Create a prototype. (2) Examine the extremes. (3) Produce the forms. (4) Fine tune the forms.
Archer, Susan. STC Proceedings (1994). Design>Document Design>Usability>Forms
#19743
Creating User-Friendly Documentation
We often hear that users do not read documents. To lure readers into reading our documents, we must make documents user-friendly.
Bhatia, Neeraj. Indus (2002). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design>Technical Writing
#26815
Google returns well over 15 million search results to the technical question of how to code hyperlinks in HTML. However, a question on how link texts should be formulated, so that the reader can understand them clearly, fetches only a handful of usable tips. Even most style guides and authoring guidelines are reticent on this topic. In this article you will find tips on this rarely dealt with, though important subject for Technical Communicators.
Achtelig, Marc. indoition engineering (2005). Articles>Writing>Document Design>Hypertext
#29937
Cropping Pages to Highlight Areas in Acrobat
When you receive a PDF that contains, say, an image that is surrounded by text, how do you highlight the image? One way is to export the graphic to an imaging application such as Photoshop, but that involves additional applications and the associated loading times. A great 'quick and dirty' fix here is to use the 'Crop' tool to hide the content that surrounds the image, leaving you with PDF which displays only an image, just the way you wanted it. This tip explains how.
Shea, Dan. PlanetPDF (2006). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat
