How to Write a Manual or Handbook - (2024)

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In this video we're going to show how you can use Proposal Kit to write instruction manuals and handbooks. Normally Proposal Kit is used to create business proposals, business plans, etc. However, it can actually create any complex Word document where you're generally going to have some kind of front and back cover a table of contents and then a set of body pages.

Which is pretty much what a report or handbook or manual might look like. We're going to illustrate this with our Business #20 design theme. Note we have hundreds and hundreds of design themes so whichever one or ones you've purchased will be your design themes that you can select in the Wizard software and that all of your created documents will look like.

Whenever we're going to create a document in the Wizard, in this case a handbook or instruction manual, we'll click the Document Projects button. Same as if you're going to create a proposal. Click Add New Project then just give it a title and we'll click the Pick Documents button.

This is where we can select all the pages that will make up the document we're going to create. So like most documents a Title Page, Table of Contents, Back Page will be our most common chapters we'll start with and the body pages are going to be just whatever pages we need to make up that manual or handbook. I'll just check off a Title Page, Table of Contents, Back Page and then we can decide what body pages we want in this manual.

We have access to a couple thousand chapters so we can add an Introduction. If it's a technical manual you know we can add chapters from the technical category. Let's say we're writing a manual for a product.

We might start adding some pages to talk about the product itself, capabilities, features, maybe how they can be customized, maybe some installation and safety related information. We'll add the Installing chapter and a Frequently Asked Questions, that's a common type of topic. Now we can add a Frequently Asked Questions page.

You'll see we have a set of 10 chapters for this instruction manual. We'll move the Products up to the top and you can see now we've got our Introduction, our Products page, Features page, an Installation page, Customization page, Safety Information, Frequently Asked Questions page. With thousands of chapter templates available you can customize a handbook or manual in countless different ways.

Once we've finished selecting all of our chapters we just save the project and the Wizard will build us this document. Okay, this document has been generated, we'll open it up take a look at it. You can see the front Title Page graphic that we set in the wizard to say Manual has been changed to Manual and you can see the list of chapters we selected and this manual is ready to finish filling in with your information.

You can just save it as a pdf or print it or whatever you need to do with it. Notice this will not be our information in the documents that you create, this is merged in from the Client and Company Data screens that you'll fill in. Whatever information you type into the Wizard for your company, your company name, phone numbers and so on, website address will get put into the document.

This is all editable text that you can change at any time after the document's been created by the Wizard. Now we'll illustrate another type of manual or handbook and we're going to use our Pest Control #2 design theme. This instruction manual is actually one of the examples that's included.

Note that we just happen to have all of our design themes loaded into our software here for demo purposes. Whichever one or more that you've purchased will be selectable from these lists. So we'll select the Pest Control #2 design theme and we'll create a new project.

We're going to select the Pest Control Information Packet from the list of Quick Start example layouts. This layout also has actual sample content written for it so when we create this manual we're going to pull in that sample content as well. You'll see this as just a different set of chapters in the body pages and this example was created for a pest control company that after they've come into a client's home or business and they've done their work they leave behind an information packet.

They create that information packet using the same Proposal Pack that they also create their client proposals with. That way all their documents they give out all look the same. Again Company Data and Client Data this is going to be your information and Client Data isn't really going to get used so much in a handbook or manual since you're writing a general purpose document versus a proposal or contract that's going to a specific person.

The Client Data isn't really that relevant. Now i'll create this information packet. All right, now this document's been generated and you can see this has the Pest Control #2 graphic design theme and the text of the information packet.

Now we'll do one last illustration. We'll do an employee handbook and we're going to illustrate this with a Contract Pack document that's part of the Proposed Kit Professional. If you just want to do a general purpose employee handbook you can still create that in the Novice Edition of the Proposal Packs.

You'll just have to supply your own text for the employee handbook material. We'll change our design theme again. We'll just go with a general purpose Classic #18 design.

Once again we'll add a new project. I'll pick a Title Page and Back Page. We will add the Contract and Terms because that is how we are going to get a contract from the Contract Pack into the document.

With the Professional version there are hundreds of pre–written contract and employee type documents you can select from. If we get down into the HR category here we can select the Human Resources Guide. We are going to insert the HR guide into the document we're creating.

We'll just add an Introduction chapter because that's the one i think we're going to use for the overall title page graphic. You can see here we have a small set of chapters now. That HR guide is going to be a longer document.

It's not just going to be a one–page template. It's going to get inserted into the Contract and Terms chapter since we are pulling it in from a Contract Pack. We're going to change the overall chapter header to use the Introduction chapter header, not the Contract and Terms chapter header.

That's just going to be some word processing. Now we have all the chapters selected. We'll change the title page graphic.

We'll change that to Handbook. Now this document has been generated and you can see we've got the Classic #18 design theme with the front title page graphic changed to Handbook. The Introduction chapter and Contract and Terms.

Since an HR guide isn't a contract we're just going to skip the Contract and Terms chapter header and we'll leave the Introduction page up here. You can just fill this in or you can delete all this text or we can just delete this page completely and just go straight to the HR text. This is just a Word document now completely up to you to edit it however you like.

You can see it's pulled in all of the text of the Proposal Kit Professional employee handbook document which is a 15 page document and ended with the Back Page. Whatever information you type in from the Company Data screen will get put in here. Your URLs and so on.

That is another example how you can use the Professional kit with pre–written content from our Professional library for an employee handbook manual having it put into the design theme of your choice that you purchased. That is how you use Proposal Kit to create handbooks, manuals and other word documents. It's not just for proposals and contracts.