Manuals printed with Print Manual in the File menu are also generated with Adobe PDF. However, the configuration options in the Configuration section of the Project Explorer do not apply here. Printed manuals are configured entirely with Print Manual Templates (see below) and the settings in the Print Manual dialog.

For more information see PDF and Printed Manuals.

Here are some brief pointers on some of the most common things you will want to do to format your template in the Manual Designer program. For full details press F1 in Manual Designer to view its detailed documentation.

Note that the same templates are used for PDF and printed manuals. Printed manuals are generated by creating a temporary PDF file, printing it and then deleting it.

Accessing and editing PDF templates

All the layout information for PDF is stored in the PDF template you use to generate your PDF output, which is edited with the Help Manual Designer program included with Help+Manual. You start it by selecting the Templates & Skins > Manual Designer option the Project tab in the main Help+Manual program.

Once you have a template open in Manual Designer, press F1 to view the separate help file of Manual Designer. This file includes a tutorial that guides you through the basic steps. Here are a few pointers for key issues that crop up often (these instructions are for Manual Designer):

Ready-to-use templates you can start with:

The standard templates you can start with are stored in the /Templates/PDF sub-folder in the Help+Manual program folder. You cannot edit anything there (that is why we put the originals there, so they don't get changed). You need to make a copy of the template you want to edit in your project folder and edit it there. You can do this in Manual Designer if you want – open the template, then select Save As... in the File menu to make the copy.

Selecting edited PDF templates:

When you publish, select PDF as your output format in the Publish dialog, then select your edited template with the Print Manual Template option in the Publish page.

Turning sections on and off in PDF templates:

Open the template in Manual Designer and select the tab corresponding to the section you want to activate or deactivate. Then select Page Options in the Pages menu and turn the "Print Section" option on or off to activate or deactivate the section.

Page size:

Select the Master (Background) section, then select Page Options in the Pages menu to select the paper side and Portrait or Landscape orientation. You can only have one page orientation for the entire PDF document.

Margins:

Select any section other than "Master" and open the Page Options in the Pages menu. Set the margins and click on the option "Apply margins to all sections" to set the margins for the entire document. You can then change the margins for other individual sections if you need. Use the "Flip Margins" option to adjust the margin settings to mirror images for left and right pages in layouts that have different margins for left and right.

Page numbers:

Page numbers are included by default in all the standard PDF templates included with Help+Manual. You can edit or remove them as you like. To remove them just delete the elements on the pages that insert them. If you remove page numbering from the pages you will also want to remove the page number references from the table of contents in the Table of Contents section.

See the Manual Designer help for details on how to configure page numbering.

Headings of topics and in the table of contents:

These are edited and styled in the Topics and Table of Contents sections in the PDF template. Each section shows six levels of headings, which represent the six levels of topics supported in PDF. You can adjust the style of headings on each level by formatting the placeholder text items containing the heading variables accordingly.

Page headers and footers:

The easiest way to have them in exactly the same place on the page in your entire project is to put them in the "Master Page" section and then activate the Master Page as the background for the page in all the other sections (in Pages > Page Options for each section). You put text objects in the top/bottom margins and use the available variables for inserting things like the title of the project, page number etc. (see the help for details).

For headers or footers containing the title of the current top-level chapter you need to turn off the Master page in the Topics section and manually insert header or footer objects there, because the topic title variables will only be valid in that section. You insert the <%HEADING1%> variable to insert the name of the current top-level topic title.

ONLY TOP-LEVEL HEADINGS IN HEADERS AND FOOTERS: You can only insert the top-level topic title in the header or footer. If you insert variables for lower levels you will get errors, because those levels do not exist on all pages. Only the <%HEADING1%> variable is always valid.

TOC and topic heading numbering:

Numbering for these items is set in the Table of Contents and Topics sections of the template. For details see the "Table of Contents" and "Topics Section" chapters in the "Designing a Template" section in the Manual Designer help.

Adding new elements  on the page and editing elements on the page:

To add a new element select a tool in the toolbar and click or drag on the page in approximately the position where you want to insert it. Double-click on an element on the page to edit it.

Setting page breaks:

You can set whether each section of the PDF starts on a new page in the Page Options for the section. You can set page breaks for each topic level in the Page Options for the Topics section. These options are in the page breaks table at the bottom of the Page Options dialog.

Manual page breaks and switching between portrait and landscape

When you insert a manual page break in Help+Manual with the page break tool you can decide whether you want the orientation to switch between landscape and portrait mode. This enables you to use both landscape and portrait pages within a single document.

The appearance and layout of your PDF output is controlled by template files with the extension .mnl called Print Manual Templates. These templates are edited with an editor called the Print Manual Designer, which is included with Help+Manual.

When you open the Print Manual Designer the last template used to publish the current project you are editing in Help+Manual will be opened automatically, if there is one.

Print manual templates control much more than the appearance of your PDF page. They can also be used to add cover pages, introductions, a keyword index and many other features.

•To select a print manual template for PDF output just select it in the Publish page with the Print Manual Template option when you are publishing your project. Help+Manual will remember this selection the next time you publish the project.

•The print manual template for printed manuals is selected directly in the dialog displayed when you select Print Manual in the File menu.

•For details see the PDF and Printed Manuals chapter, the section on the Print Manual Designer in the Tools chapter and the separate help and documentation of the Print Manual Designer program itself.

Active hyperlinks in exported PDF files automatically include the link's title as alt text.

The PDF/A output option includes a new setting for accessibility tags (section 508 compliance). This option currently creates a basic document structure, but not with the required granularity. We will improve this feature with one of the next updates to make the PDF output fully section 508 compliant.

The three groups of options in Project Explorer > Publishing Options > Adobe PDF control the basic functionality of your Adobe PDF output.

PDF Layout:

These options are critical for PDF output and should always be checked before generating PDF from your project for the first time. This is where you select the print manual template file that defines the entire appearance and content of your PDF document. The Output Style setting specifies whether you want to create an interactive PDF for on-screen viewing or a document-style PDF for printing.

See PDF Layout and PDF and Printed Manuals for details.

PDF Options:

These options are not quite so crucial but they can make a big difference to how your PDF document functions. They should always be checked before publishing a PDF or distributing it to your users.

See PDF Options for details.

Font Embedding:

The options in this section can significantly effect the size of your PDF output file, and whether your users see your files with the same fonts that you chose when you produced the document. How you configure these options is particularly important for languages requiring full Unicode character sets, like Russian, Greek and many Asian languages.

See Font Embedding for details.

Help+Manual uses a printer driver to generate PDF documents. This will normally be your screen device or your default printer. If your PDF output is OK you don't need to change this but if you experience problems you may need to install an additional standard printer driver for PDF conversion.

See Customize - PDF Export for details.