Printable Manual - Help?

[rbelisle]

I have been introducing many people to GBPVR in the last few months and one request I keep getting is "Is there a printable manual?". Now I know that the wiki is the main source for program information, config, etc, but many people like to have something to refer to that they can print out and keep beside their PC. (Like my Dad). So.....

I have started to put together a manual and was wondering if anyone else would be interested in helping out? There will be certain areas that I can't fill out because I don't have the equipment (MCE remote or MVP, for example) to understand exactly how the docs should read, look.

I am also looking for suggestions on how to put this together, but not leave it in one person's hand for updates etc. We all know how tough it is when one person is the bottleneck. So I'm looking for ideas on how to make a printable document, that has the editability of a wiki. Maybe there is some way we can extract the info from the Wiki into another format to edit? Then the Wiki would be THE reference and occasionally we could create a new printable version?

Any ideas, thoughts are welcome... Otherwise, I'm just going to create a big ugly Word document...

[McBainUK]

There is a "print view option" on the wiki. Bit of a cop out I know but may be usefull.

[rbelisle]

That is actually how I did my first 'printable' manual. Saved a bunch of pages to a pdf and printed it out. I want something that has a real table of contents, index, etc...

[ricklous]

I started something like this a few months back to give my aunt and uncle a guide they can have hanging around the living room for reference. I didnt finish it much as i was still changing things on the system, but PM me your email address and i will post you what i started Maybe we can use it as a starting point to flesh out into a guide between us.

[rbelisle]

I have looked at the pmWIKI site (the WIKI engine used on GBPVR). There are some utilities to create a PDF of your WIKI site... that might help. Guess I would need to talk to SUB about that as I expect you would need to host on the WIKI server.

I really do want something that looks good. If we could proof out (Sub, are you listening?) that the output would be OK from one of these tools, then I would spend the time to update the WIKI. Otherwise, I think I may just be on my own...

[sub]

You'd probably have send a PM to blader_se. I dont know anything about the wiki.

[rbelisle]

So he supports/runs the WIKI? (Blader_se) I mean?

[sub]

Yes.

[ShiningDragon]

It's not so heavy to create a manual from the Wiki, as long as the Print View works fine on this side.
Just install the freeware "PDF Creator" as virtual printer. Then print the different pages mit the virtual Printer "PDF Creator".
I just checked the Result with the "ReadMe first" and it look's really good. If someone want to have a view, just dl' the attachement and unzip this.

[rowle1jt]

That looks really good!!!



I too use a PDF Creator to "print" things that I want to save. Then I can keep them with the appropriate program.