Tag: Manuals

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Do you know about Document Map in Microsoft Word?

Whenever I go through a Word document with clients and they ask where a section is, I always refer them to the Document Map. Frequently, they don’t know what it is. Do you know what it is?

In short, Document Map displays the table of contents on the left side of your screen. This is helpful when searching for sections in a document even if there is a table of contents (less back and forth). You just have to make sure your text has heading styles applied to it correctly.

To find it and use it, follow the steps below.

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Business Writing

Fixed-Price Proposals

At Shoap Technical Services, we take pride in our ability to offer our clients fixed-priced bids for technical documentation and training.  We feel that this is an advantage to our clients because everyone likes to know how much a project is going to cost before they start.  And we feel confidant that we can correctly estimate a project because 1) we’ve done so many technical writing and training projects over the past 25 years and 2) we’ve learned how to break down a project into small enough parts so we can assign numbers (time) to each part to determine a total cost.  What we like to say is, “If we can put our arms around the project, we can successfully bid it.”  While we have, at times, missed our estimates and had to finish a project at a loss, most of the time we’re pretty accurate.  That makes our clients happy because they know from the outset what they’re going to have to pay and it allows us to make enough money to stay in business.

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Business Writing

Manuals: Why They Do Not Matter

Christmas, 2009:
The penguin wrapping paper is shredded from an oblong, rectangular package, carefully branded by a stark white apple on black monochrome — The Apple iPod ® Nano. The product is reverently lifted from the case along with the ear buds and sleek quick start guide, leaving the thick, intimidating, and unhelpful paper manual in the bottom — it might as well have been packing peanuts. Why do manufacturers bother with the archaic manual documentation which wastes paper, takes up unneeded space, and adds weight to the shipping fee? The product is blithely toyed with, prodded, poked, and explored without so much as a cursory glance to the woe begotten manual in the box, the user happily glancing through the quick start guide if they come upon any snags in the process of operating their new system. The manual is never read, collects dust, and slowly sinks into oblivion. Let’s explore why the manual falls to such a fate.

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