How to format a manual for printing.

[IanF]

Hi Guys
I am trying to be proactive with this, we get a lot of manuals which aren't correctly formatted so instead of moaning I wanted to get the ball rolling on how to format a manual. I have also put this on my blog
Please let me have your comments.

Here is my contribution to help customers (current and future) to set up their manuals for optimal reading and printing.

First before you start make sure your page size is set to A4 portrait. Margins for all pages before binding including those on which illustrations, photographs, tables and diagrams are printed should be,

• Inner margin 40mm (4cm)
• Outer margin 30mm (3cm)
• Top and bottom margin 25 (2.5cm)

The text of the manual should be printed in 12 point type(minimum) in 1.5 or double line spacing. You should try to fit your tables, illustrations and photos on an A4 page within the margins. If necessary, large tables and illustrations may be placed on an A3 sheet, and then folded by us so that it opens to the right. Advise us of the existence of these A3 sheets, to ensure that the folds are not cut during binding.

Each page should be numbered. The title and index pages are normally numbered in lower case roman numbers counting from the title page (i.e., i, ii, iii, iv …), although the number on the title page is not shown. The rest of the manual should be numbered in numerals (i.e., 1, 2, 3 ,4 …) . All diagrams, photographs, tables and illustrations should be included in the numbering sequence, as should the appendices and bibliography.

The content and layout of the content is up to the author.

Copyright is a legal issue and professional advice should be sought if it is important to you. As I understand copyright vests in the author for 50 years from when the work is first published and is denoted by (c) symbol and the year. Where the author is employed to write then the copyright vests with the Employer.

If you have anything to add to this leave a comment or send me an email
Thanks
Ian Franks
mobile@printimage.co.za

[SilverNodashi]

It looks good. I want to add though, that not all manuals are always A4, some are A5 as well. Other than that it's good

[IanF]

that not all manuals are always A4, some are A5 as well. Other than that it's good

Softdux thanks for that point most people do there manuals A4 which is easy to print to A5 if you have the right workflow. I will work that in.

[Dave A]

The problem with the letter size page formatting is that Word ships with letter set as default. And so do some makes of printers. I'd remind clients to change that to A4 - and to check this setting every time they install a new Office Word package on a computer or install a new printer.

I do have a question on that though - Don't we get letter size paper here in SA?
I suppose if we do, it's way more expensive because it is considered non-standard here. But as a professional printer, it might be worth it to carry stock (?)

EDIT: Nice blog by the way. Most informative.

[SilverNodashi]

yes, MS Office (and I think most other office programs) ships with Letter as default, due to the ANSI papersizes, and a lot of printers as well, since they're manufactured in other countries. Setting the printer driver to A4 normally sorts the Office problem as well, but not many people do it, unless they actually have a printer / print something.

This is rather tedious for printing companies, unless they have printers which could automatically override the paper size while printing

[IanF]

I do have a question on that though - Don't we get letter size paper here in SA?
I suppose if we do, it's way more expensive because it is considered non-standard here. But as a professional printer, it might be worth it to carry stock (?)

EDIT: Nice blog by the way. Most informative.

Dave
Thanks for that. Yes printers can print letter size no problem and we can cut the paper to that size. The problem then comes with the stationery. Letter is 280mm x 216mm. When you file the paper it is too wide, plastic sleeves are only available in 210mm wide size in SA, covers and binding combs and binding machines are the metric standard in SA. So a complete new a range of stationery would have to be catered for. The biggest problem is that the A sizes are proportional so to upscale from an A4 to A3 the ratio is 1.41 which is the square root of 2. Then the ratio from A4 to A2 is 2. With letter sizes this does not work as well so you are left with margins when you up scale or down scale. I will post more info on the ISO paper sizes later which I find fascinating.