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| 8 Steps to Successfully Managing your Documentation Projects |
| Step 4: Define Your Development Process & Stick To It (continued) |
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| Establish Style Guidelines |
| Design all your templates and then document their specifications: |
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How do you envision the materials being designed? |
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Do you have company or client standards, templates, or colors that you must incorporate? |
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How will printed materials be produced? (e.g. – color vs. black & white, 3-hole punch vs. spiral bound, paper stocks, document sizes, etc.) |
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Will you include indices and/or tables of contents? Will they be manually- or automatically-generated? |
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| Define your content: |
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Finalize the document set. (e.g. online help system, quick reference guides, user manuals, slides, slicks, handouts, etc.) |
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Develop detailed content outlines for each item in the set. |
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Identify your needs regarding graphic images: |
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Will you need to shoot photos & videos or create your own clipart & graphics - or can you use stock & client-supplied images? |
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Do you need to do any image scanning, editing, or cropping? |
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Have you determined which image file formats work best for your applications & final output? Always run thorough tests with different image formats (GIF, PNG, TIFF, etc.) to determine the best image quality & most efficient file sizes. |
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| Define your file naming conventions & file transfer procedures: |
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Do you or your client have internal file naming or version control standards you must adhere to? (See our helpful, in-depth article about file naming conventions.) |
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How will you track files that are passed among team members? Reviewers? |
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