Understanding the structure
The order of topics in the table of contents reflects the order of tasks that you typically need to perform:
▪First, you need to analyze the requirements and can then develop the global information architecture.
This step is covered by the first major section: Structuring. ▪When you know your goal, you can then begin to design and set up the templates for your documents, starting with the global page and screen layout, going down to paragraph styles and character styles in detail.
This step is covered by the second major section: Designing. ▪When you’ve set up the information architecture and prepared the templates for your documents, you’re now ready for the main task: Creating content.
This step is covered by the third major section: Writing.
You don’t have to read everything from start to finish. All topics are independent of each other. You don’t have to read any particular topic to understand another one.
In addition to the major sections listed above, we’ve added some guides, which help you to find the best tools and resources for your daily work.
▪Tool Guide: Using the right set of tools can save you lots of time and trouble. To show you what’s possible, and to streamline your search, we’ve compiled a number of comprehensive market overviews of recommendable software. ▪Web Guide: On the web, there are many excellent resources for technical writers and user assistance professionals. To help you separate the wheat from the chaff, we’ve compiled some lists of the most recommendable web sites in the field. ▪Book Guide: The Technical Documentation Copy and Paste Kit tells you everything that you need to know to produce excellent user documentation, so normally you don’t need any extra reading. However, if you want to dig deeper into a particular topic, the book guide provides you some lists of recommendable books that provide additional information. Expand /Collapse All Subsections
When you click a heading in the table of contents, the section expands and all other sections collapse. This allows you to focus on the section that you’re currently reading.

If you don’t want other sections to collapse when you open a new section, don’t click the text but the arrow symbol or the book icon. You can open as many sections simultaneously as you like.

|
If you’re looking for particular information but don’t know where you should look for this information in the table of contents, you can use the alphabetical index, or you can use full-text search.
Tip:
In general, prefer the index rather than full-text search. The index takes you directly to the most relevant topic, whereas full-text search may list a large number of topics to choose from. Only use full-text search if the index doesn’t provide the information you need.
To open the index or search, click the corresponding tab on the left side of the browser window.

|
If you want to keep all several topics open simultaneously, you can open new topics on a new browser tab or in a new browser window. This works exactly as it works with any web page.
To open a topic in a new tab or in a new window, right-click the corresponding entry in the table of contents or right-click a link that points to the topic, and then—depending on your particular browser—choose Open Link in New Tab, Open Link in New Window or a an equivalent command.
This works within:
▪the table of contents ▪the index ▪the results window of full-text search ▪all topics |
The kit uses a frameset. If you want to bookmark one of the kit’s pages in your browser, pay attention not to bookmark the frameset but the text page within the contents frame on the right.
In most browsers, you can right-click the frame and then bookmark it.

If your particular browser doesn’t support this method, right-click the frame, view the page properties to find out the page’s URL, and then manually add a bookmark to this URL.
|
The kit uses a frameset. In most browsers, you can print a topic conveniently by clicking the print icon in the upper right corner.

Note:
If printing via the print icon doesn’t work properly in your particular browser, you need to print the content of the right frame manually. To do so, right-click anywhere on the text, and then choose the menu item that prints the current frame’s content.
|
|