Dave Phillips wrote:
Greetings:
First of all, thank you to everyone who responded. I really only
expected a few replies, but it seems that many of you here are
multi-talented, and I thank you all for your messages and offers of
assistance. I received so many replies that I thought it might be
better to respond to the list (rather than individually), and I want
to expand the topic anyway.
After some consideration I've decided to bring the original topic to
the list. I'm preparing some documentation for a project, and I need
to make some "instructive" screenshots, what Steve D tells me are
called callouts. Brett McCoy suggested I use layers in the GIMP, which
seems pretty do-able to me, but someone else suggested that I might be
better off using something like xfig. I want to do a simple thing
(well, to me it's simple, but that's because I don't know how to do
it), I want to place a screenshot against a larger white background,
which would server as an area for descriptive text. Arrows would point
from the text to the item described, and ideally those arrows would be
placed at any needed angle. Considering how often I see this type of
picture I'd assumed it would be simple in the GIMP: would I in fact be
better accomodated by some other graphics app ?
The topic has got a bit bigger in my mind now, so I thought I'd ask
this question on the open list: Do users have a preference for
documentation format ? I admit that while I like HTML it does look
rather clunky next to a polished PDF file. Trouble is, I don't know
how to format for PDF. So, what format would you prefer ?
I've noted this thread as OT, hopefully no-one will be bored to tears
by it... :)
Best regards,
dp
Dave,
Sounds like Gimp with screen cap and cropping along with OpenOffice for
text, arrows and formatting all exported as PDF would be an effective,
efficient, and easy to master solution. I've done this with a large
amount of computer application instructional materials and though I have
shed some tears they've not been due to boredom...
Frank