Whichever boring and insipid creating a manual usually is, whether you are a developer/manufacturer or an end-user, you simply cannot do without one. Perspective of poking a finger in the sky in order to figure out how to employ the product as well as leaving your arduous piece of work without a detailed description does not sound great at all. So like it or not, manuals are integral parts of our life.
Depending on the purpose and targeted audience, manuals fall into numerous categories such as
- standard manuals;
- user manuals;
- training manuals;
- policy manuals;
- office manuals;
- service manuals, and other specific guides.
As befits every formal written material, it should comply with some requirements. If you want to build up a real guide you should stick to some rules, for example, your manual should have a table of contents if it exceeds 10 pages or the preface should include references to related documents if you have such. Of course, every good and detailed manual should be populated with images and complementary instructions. The list of principles is quite long; nevertheless it is worth to be taken into account.
All in all, manuals can be pretty tedious with lots of continuous text, tables, diagrams and images, however if they are written to the point and are based on a properly-organized structure, your users won’t have difficulties in their reading and comprehension. And our collection of free, cut-and-dried templates for creating manuals will assist you in coming with an easy “digestible” copy.
Professional manual
Creator: microsoft
Format: Word 2003 or later
License: Free to use.
User Manual
Creator: manualtemplates
Format: doc
License: Free to use.
Training Manual
Creator: manualtemplates
Format: doc
License: Free to use.
Technology Manual
Creator: manualtemplates
Format: doc
License: Free to use.
Software Manual
Creator: manualtemplates
Format: doc
License: Free to use.
Product Manual
Creator: manualtemplates
Format: doc
License: Free to use.
Training Plan Template
Creator: docstoc
Format: doc
License: Free to use.
Employment manual outline
Creator: microsoft
Format: Word 2003 or later
License: Free to use.
User Manual Template
Creator: freewordtemplatesz
Format: doc
License: Free to use.
Manual Template
Creator: freewordtemplatesz
Format: doc
License: Free to use.
Manual Template
Creator: brighthub
Format: doc
License: Free to use.
Employment Manual
Creator: brighthub
Format: doc
License: Free to use.
Advertising Manual
Creator: manualtemplates
Format: doc
License: Free to use.
Customer Service Manual
Creator: manualtemplates
Format: doc
License: Free to use.
Policy Manual
Creator: manualtemplates
Format: doc
License: Free to use.
Employee Manual
Creator: manualtemplates
Format: doc
License: Free to use.
Quality Assurance Manual
Creator: docstoc
Format: doc
License: Free to use.
Systems Administration Manual Template
Creator: docstoc
Format: doc
License: Free to use.
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3 Comments:
More than a year ago
90's are you being generous, couldn't even read the page of Docbook as bad as it is.
More than a year ago
IMHO, better off skipping the templates and maintaining documentation as Docbook, reStructuredText, or Markdown - there's nothing more professional that documentation that's actually maintainable and kept up to date.
Word documents simply don't fit that bill over the long haul, and are not version control friendly.
More than a year ago
Appreciate the post! But these manual templates look like they were made in the 90's...