Manuals printed with Print Manual in the File menu are also generated with Adobe PDF. However, the configuration options in the Configuration section of the Project Explorer do not apply here. Printed manuals are configured entirely with Print Manual Templates (see below) and the settings in the Print Manual dialog.

For more information see PDF and Printed Manuals.

The appearance and layout of your PDF output is controlled by template files with the extension .mnl called Print Manual Templates. These templates are edited with an editor called the Print Manual Designer, which is included with Help & Manual.

Print manual templates control much more than the appearance of your PDF page. They can also be used to add cover pages, introductions, a keyword index and many other features.

•To attach a print manual template to your project for PDF output go to Configuration > Publishing Options > Adobe PDF > PDF Layout and select a template in the Print Manual Template: field. You can then open the selected template directly for editing by clicking on the Design button.

•The print manual template for printed manuals is selected directly in the dialog displayed when you select Print Manual in the File menu.

•For details see the PDF and Printed Manuals chapter, the section on the Print Manual Designer in the Tools chapter and the separate help and documentation of the Print Manual Designer program itself.

The three groups of options in Project Explorer > Publishing Options > Adobe PDF control the basic functionality of your Adobe PDF output.

PDF Layout:

These options are critical for PDF output and should always be checked before generating PDF from your project for the first time. This is where you select the print manual template file that defines the entire appearance and content of your PDF document. The Output Style setting specifies whether you want to create an interactive PDF for on-screen viewing or a document-style PDF for printing.

See PDF Layout and PDF and Printed Manuals for details.

PDF Options:

These options are not quite so crucial but they can make a big difference to how your PDF document functions. They should always be checked before publishing a PDF or distributing it to your users.

See PDF Options for details.

Font Embedding:

The options in this section can significantly effect the size of your PDF output file, and whether your users see your files with the same fonts that you chose when you produced the document. How you configure these options is particularly important for languages requiring full Unicode character sets, like Russian, Greek and many Asian languages.

See Font Embedding for details.

Help & Manual uses a printer driver to generate PDF documents. This will normally be your screen device or your default printer. If your PDF output is OK you don't need to change this but if you experience problems you may need to install an additional standard printer driver for PDF conversion.

See Customize - PDF Export for details.