You can produce quality user assistance and documentation without spending thousands of dollars on tools. A profile of five open source tools for user assistance. This is a version of a talk given at the 2009 WritersUA conference, and at the March STC Wisconsin chapter meeting.

1. Exploring Open Source Tools for User Assistance Mike McCallister (ProTek Writing Services) [email_address]

6. Beware of potential malware!

8. Scribus: Desktop publishing, page layouts

10. Inkscape: Vector graphics

12. Draw vector graphics tool – similar to Illustrator, CorelDRAW

13. Impress presentation – similar to PowerPoint

14. Calc spreadsheet – similar to Excel

17. OOo Writer vs. FrameMaker vs. Word Writer FrameMaker Word Master documents Book files Master documents Conditional text Conditional text Limited conditional text support Direct PDF export Acrobat Distiller PDF plug-ins available. Cascading styles Structure available Cascading styles; Strong outline tool Simple list numbering Simple list numbering Field codes

20. Graphics

23. Cleaner code than Word

24. XML Forms Wizard

25. Simple controls in toolbar

26. Gallery provides backgrounds, bullets, and sounds

27. Preview in (default) browser

29. Create text and graphics elsewhere, then import

30. Good for (short) manuals, quick reference guides, dynamic PDF

31. Export to print, PDF

32. Careful: Default templates in A4

33. Scribus

35. Fully separates presentation from text

36. WYSIWYM: What you see is what you mean

37. Exports to ODF, PDF, HTML

38. Terrific equation editor

39. Excellent documentation

40. LyX

42. Book: Article with Chapters

43. Letter

44. Report

47. Raster graphics (JPG, PNG)

48. Layers

49. Screenshots

50. Beginning to support CMYK color rendering through GEGL

51. GIMP vs. Photoshop GIMP Photoshop Layer styles Layers Scripts, not macros Macro recording tool Many useful plug-ins Massive developer community writing add-ons GimpShop available, but not current Uses different terminology GIMP is great if it’s your first editing tool, but Photoshop experts may not find their skills transferable

53. Scalable Vector Graphics

54. Layers

55. Callouts & text boxes

56. Flowcharts

57. Built-in IM support client

60. Supports event handlers

63. Set font

64. Type

65. Add arrows as necessary

67. Open standards

68. Price is right

69. Learning curve comparable from app to app

70. Portability

72. OOo Doc Team: http://oooauthors.org

73. Scribus: http://www.scribus.net

74. Lyx: http://www.lyx.org

75. The GIMP: http://www.gimp.org

76. Inkscape: http://www.inkscape.org

78. Wikipedia list of OSS packages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_ software_packages

79. PDF Creator: http://www-pdfcreator.com/

80. Dia flowchart tool: http://live.gnome.org/Dia/

81. Mike McCallister: http://www.michaelmccallister.com