Delivered on MacMania 15 in Australia, this talk starts with built-in tools on the Mac to take screenshots, works up to 3rd party tools for screenshots with annotations and finishes with 3rd party tools to add text and annotations to screencaptures to create tutorials and manuals.

1. Creating Spectacular
Documentation
Allison Sheridan
November 2012
http://podfeet.com
Sunday, November 25, 12 1

2. What Kind of Documentation?
Send email to my friend to help them with
their computer
Show a software developer a bug in their
full spectrum
software
Ask for clarification on how a site or
application works
How-to’s for your co-workers
Advanced tutorials
Full blown manuals on documenting your
web service or software application
http://podfeet.com
Sunday, November 25, 12 2

3. Let’s Star t with Simple Screenshots
Apple has a built in screenshot tool
⌘-shift-3 to take a shot of the entire screen, and save to
the desktop
⌘-shift-4 gives you cross-hairs to get just part of the
screen (and save to the desktop)
Adding control to the mix (⌘-shift-control-4) keeps
the screenshot in the clipboard instead for easy pasting
Use the space bar to any of these to capture an exact
window - with a (giant) drop shadow
http://podfeet.com
Sunday, November 25, 12 3

4. Grab is Built in Too
Don’t like all those weird keystrokes?
Try the Grab Utility
Easy pull-down menus
Selection, Window, Screen
Even timed screenshots
Handy capturing drop down menus
You can even have cute pointers in the shot!
Either method of screenshot capture is great
for dropping a simple picture into an email
http://podfeet.com
Sunday, November 25, 12 4

5. Take Up Your Game with Skitch
Sometimes a simple screenshot isn’t enough - you need
to point at a checkbox or encircle a menu name
Try Skitch from Evernote
Free at evernote.com/skitch/
It’s even available for iOS & Android!
Fullscreen, area snap, even use your
iSight Camera
Capture pull down menus on a timer
Export options include png, jpg, tiff,
gif or even bmp from Windows
http://podfeet.com
Sunday, November 25, 12 5

6. Skitch’s Many Advanced Features
Annotate your shots
Lines, arrows, circles, rectangles,
rounded rectangles, ovals,
add text, pixelate sensitive info
Share
Online services
Local storage
Share image urls from Evernote
Skitch stores all your images in
Evernote automatically
http://podfeet.com
Sunday, November 25, 12 6

7. Jing - Does Flash Videos Too
Jing does simple screen capture much like Skitch but
does Flash Video too...if you like that sort of thing
Free for Mac and Windows from techsmith.com/jing.html
Jing hovers on the edge of your window awaiting you
Select the area, then decide if you want
a screenshot or a video
For images you can annotate with arrows,
text, rectangles or lines
Videos limited to 5 min
Share to Screencast.com
http://podfeet.com
Sunday, November 25, 12 7

8. I Want to Do More!
http://podfeet.com
Sunday, November 25, 12 8

9. My Life Before
I used to use Microsoft Word for documentation
®
I used to hate my job
Take a screenshot, paste it into Word
Text moves randomly around the image
I began to hate that stupid dog
I’d try to move the image - jump to the end
I turned to drink...
http://podfeet.com
Sunday, November 25, 12 9

10. What Changed?
Two applications arrived on the scene
First ScreenSteps for creating full manuals
Then Clarify for making single page instructions
How are they different from using Word?
Designed to make you happy while you create
Designed to make your customer happy
Designed to help you go quickly
Designed to make you look like a genius
Designed to lower your support costs & time
http://podfeet.com
Sunday, November 25, 12 10

11. Here’s Problems You Can Solve
Your father-in-law wants to know how to keep his
printer showing in the dock
Your daughter wants the Emoji keyboard on her iPhone
Your dentist wants to know how you type his name
René with the accent
You want to remember how to partition a drive so it can
be a bootable backup
Answer questions once.
http://podfeet.com
Sunday, November 25, 12 11

12. Is it Hard to Keep Them Up to Date?
Editing documentation is normally a real pain
Editing ScreenSteps and Clarify is incredibly easy
When a menu changes, you can replace the image very
easily, adjust annotations and republish
Republishing can be
Updating a WordPress page
Creating a new PDF
Even creating a new Word version
Enough teasing...let’s play!
Both ScreenSteps & Clarify are from bluemangolearning.com
http://podfeet.com
Sunday, November 25, 12 12

13. Clarify...with Clarify
Clarify is for short form problems where you need to
clarify something
$30 in the Mac App Store, or $40 for a cross-platform
Windows/Mac version from the website
Publish documents to clarify-it.com so you can send just
a link instead of a giant file
Export to PDF to email or save
Export to Rich Text Format to
the clipboard for easy pasting
into an email or other file
Even export to Evernote!
http://podfeet.com
Sunday, November 25, 12 13

14. Getting Star ted with Clarify
Clarify creates multi-step lessons
Start by using the camera icon to take the shot
Automatically names the step the name of the
captured window
Or use the + button to add a step and then paste in a
screenshot or an image you already have
The number next to the camera allows timed
screenshots with up to 8 seconds delay
You can easily replace an image with the switcheroo
camera
http://podfeet.com
Sunday, November 25, 12 14

15. Star t Annotating
Annotation tools
Arrows, boxes, ovals
Highlighter
Text notations
Blur confidential info (yay!)
The money card is sequence numbers
Clarify the order of steps on a screen using
sequence numbers
Add text in a numbered list
http://podfeet.com
Sunday, November 25, 12 15

16. Format to Your Hear t’s Desire
Change fill colors, border colors
Change line thickness and opacity
Change fonts
Change arrow heads
Change blur opacity
Change highlight opacity
http://podfeet.com
Sunday, November 25, 12 16

17. The Big Daddy - ScreenSteps
ScreenSteps Desktop Standard is $40, Pro is $80
ScreenSteps is made to create professional
documentation for a software tool or a website
Create Lessons, organize Lessons into Manuals
Share documentation tasks between team members
Post online help files
Publish to WordPress, Movable Type, TypePad,
Squarespace, Blogger
All tutorials on podfeet.com were made using
ScreenSteps
http://podfeet.com
Sunday, November 25, 12 17

18. ScreenSteps Librar y
ScreenSteps is flexible to your needs
Short Lessons with a few Steps
Long form Manuals
Chapters
Lessons
Steps
http://podfeet.com
Sunday, November 25, 12 18

19. Tag or Lesson View
http://podfeet.com
Sunday, November 25, 12 19

20. Creating Lessons
Capture tool
Insert real links
Enter instructions
Bulleted/Numbered
Lists
Annotate
Set review level to
Not Finished, Needs
Review, or Approved
Export to your heart’s content!
http://podfeet.com
Sunday, November 25, 12 20

21. Additional Advantages of ScreenSteps
Rearrange steps with the Inspector
Floating window for the screen capture tool
Use any screen capture tool you like - shot will pop right
into ScreenSteps lesson
Use Clipboard button look to see if it’s pulsing
More template options - Word and PDF
Export options well beyond Clarify
http://podfeet.com
Sunday, November 25, 12 21

22. What Have We Learned
There’s built-in tools to capture simple screenshots
There’s freeware tools to capture screenshots and
annotate them
There’s freeware tools to capture short videos (but
you’ll be no Don McAllister)
There’s paid for applications to help you help co-
workers, friends and family
There’s paid for applications to help you build full scale
documentation for your work
http://podfeet.com
Sunday, November 25, 12 22

23. Giant Link Farm of Doom™
Skitch free at evernote.com/skitch/
Jing free Mac/Windows from techsmith.com/jing.html
ScreenSteps & Clarify from bluemangolearning.com
Clarify $30 in the Mac App Store
http://podfeet.com
Sunday, November 25, 12 23