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How long does it take to create technical documentation, especially software documentation such as user manuals, online help files, screencasts, demos and tutorials?
Often, products are almost ready for shipping but still lack documentation. No reason to panic when you read the numbers given below. If there are tight deadlines we can provide a preliminary solution, which can be complemented later step by step.
The time that it takes to create technical documentation (user manuals, online help files) directly correlates with the length of the documents. You can use the same rule of thumb as for estimating the costs. For creating software documentaton, it takes:
| ▪ | about 1 hour per page for revising an existing document |
| ▪ | about 2 hours per page for writing a new document |
When documenting hardware and complex drawings have to be made, the time required can be significantly higher.
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When the texts are complete, usually there’s a review, which gives you the opportunity to verify the new documentation and to ask for changes. The time needed for this review, plus the time needed to make the changes, must be added to the time calculated above.
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Keywords relating to this page: technical documentation - software documentation - user documentation - user assistance - software user assistance - manual - user manual - online help - online help file - time to create - duration - expenditure of time - time to delivery - effort.
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