How to Write a Technical Manual Fast

This book was written for business people who have little time to create manuals (and even less time to figure out how to do it) but who know it is critical to have one, because

THE MANUAL IS THE CUSTOMER’S PRIMARY WINDOW INTO USING THE PRODUCT.

Promotion and marketing count—but if you can’t explain how the product is meant to work in the customer’s world, you have a problem.

If the right conditions are in place, a working draft of your technical manual can be ready FAST—within a week.

Your motivation is to give customers the best possible description of how the software or hardware operates. You may never get feedback from them, but that is likely a good thing—it means they didn’t have to call Tech Support—they were able to make sense of what the product did because of what you gave them in the manual. THAT IS WHAT YOU WANT.

In these brief pages I have described what you need to prepare the manual up front so that adding content over time is streamlined and easy.