OVERVIEW

CHAPTER SUMMARY

This chapter concludes the work begun in the previous chapter. This chapter provides tips on how to write up the standards in a reference book or on-line documentation.

In this chapter, we create the CAD standard reference book. There are two formats you should consider: paper and electronic.

One option is to document your CAD standards on paper in a three-ring binder. This lets the CAD operators quickly scan through the standards; the format can also be given to clients and contractors. The drawback to a paper-based manual is that it can be slower to search for a specific topic, and more expensive to update, than electronic documentation.

The second option is to create online documentation in HTML format (hypertext markup language, the same format used to create Web pages) or as a PDF file (portable document format, the format displayed by Adobe Acrobat). The advantage to electronic documentation is that is can be created and distributed more cheaply and quickly than paper documents. The drawback is that a Web browser can search only the currently displayed page, and it does not print very efficiently (each hyperlinked page must be printed separately). One solution is place the entire standard into one enormous HTML (or PDF) file, with a hyperlinked table of contents at the top of the document.

This chapter shows you several tables of contents to help you write the CAD standard. You may need to create several manuals:

Generic CAD Manual (Metric and Imperial...