A template is a guideline, which helps the writers to place the information in an organized and attractive way. Designing a template is a creative and acumen task. It is also true that every writer is not able to design documents; therefore there are helping hands or the creative department takes that task.
Although, when it comes to the creative department, the document draft is first written and then designed. Still, a template is required for the draft in form of fonts, tables, figures, headings, procedures and more. These are known as styles. However, simple the document draft is, a writer does keep the headings, font, and other styles in use throughout.
Using a template is as essential as writing a document. It is a format which is used by all the technical writers working in a company. It becomes a standard, and therefore every new or already working writer uses it. The user manuals related to a product or company remain customary.
How to Create a Template in MS Word
To create a template in MS Word is easy and versatile. MS Word now gives many features, which any writer can try to use and produce a user-friendly manual template.
Before designing, there is some formatting required for a template:
- Brainstorming on the information required for the product’s user manual.
- Select File/New/Templates to create new template.
- The templates saves with the extension .dot. For example, usermanual.dot.
- Setting the Page Set up options for Margins and Page Layout.
- Selecting the color schemes for the manual.
- Modifying the Styles of Normal fonts, Headings, Title etc
- Modify tables, figures, headers, footers and captions as required to appear.
Now, it is time for implementing the formatting, such as:
- Create the Cover page. Here, image from the creative department about the product is very suitable.
- Position text, where the name of user manual is eye catching.
- Create pages for user manual such as, Preface, Foreword, Table of Contents, Chapter 1, Index and then Back cover.
- Implement the styles, tables, figures etc on pages accordingly.
- Save the template. It is ready to use whenever needed.
Tips and Tricks
The first tip for creating template is that before starting work on the .dot template, take some time to draft a rough style guide. Go through few user manuals for ideas; get ideas from the Style Manuals like Oxford Style Manual, Microsoft Style Guide etc.
While creating a template, avoid using fancy fonts. The reason is that sometimes the Word format is converted to PDF or Online help and some software do not support certain fancy fonts. Keep the fonts standard like Verdana, Times Roman, Arial etc
To keep the formatting and design of every page separate, insert Break on the end of every page. Activate options such as tabs, anchors, and rulers so that every type of formatting is easy to look. For a technical writer, these options are very important to be in active mode. To keep the headers and footers in an even and odd view, select even and odd pages in the Page Setup.
Resources:
http://www.klariti.com/business-writing/So-you-think-you-know-what-Template.shtml
http://www.klariti.com/business-writing/Creating-New-Word-Template.shtml
MS Word
The Oxford Style Manual, 2003. Published by Oxford University Press. ISBN: 0 19 860564 1
