Technical Documentation Improvements

Technical Documentation Improvements

Creating and maintaining technical documentation is an ongoing process, which means learning tools to make that process more efficient pays off soon. Aras Innovator has a robust set of technical documentation tools as part of a common configuration. Today we’re going to discuss a pair of recent improvements to the process: as of version 17, you can drag and drop sections to rearrange them as well as resize the graphics within the Technical Document editor.

In our examples in this article, we’re using Aras Innovator version 18 and an administrator account. That isn’t necessary- these improvements are in version 17, and can be expected to function in versions released after this article- but if you find what you see differs slightly from what these steps depict, check your version and access credentials. 

Sometimes you find you’ve written the right thing, but in the wrong order. It happens to the best of us. Ideally, you want your technical documentation platform to be easy to adjust and change, and Aras Innovator prides itself on being adjustable and keeping pace with your needs! First, open the technical document you want to work on, and click Edit to start making changes.

On the left of the TechDoc editor window, there’s an outline of all the elements of your document. Expand pieces of it until you have the elements that you want to move around. In our example, we’re going to move the whole of the Gantry section to between the Body and the Extruder.

To do this, all that needs done is to is left-click and hold on the Marketing-Doc section for the Gantry until it becomes translucent. From that point, it can be dragged up to where it’s wanted- you’ll see a horizontal bar showing exactly where it’s going to wind up, and the bar will be red if you can’t put it there for some reason. Blue means we’re good to go! Release the mouse button and it’ll drop into place.

Looking at this, perhaps you want to adjust the size of your image. Make sure the TechDoc you want to edit is open for editing. If you find you can’t edit a section in a technical document in Aras Innovator, the reason is usually that you’re in a larger document that has another document linked within it. If that’s the case, you need to open the sub-document.  Once you're ready, left click on the image in the editor, and you’ll see a black outline appear around it with four circles at the corners. Simply click on one of the circles and drag it to resize the image. It will scale automatically for you.

Don’t forget to save and hit Done when you’re finished!

Conclusions and Congratulations

If you’ve been using technical documentation tools in Aras Innovator for years, you may have missed these quality of life improvements. If you’ve never written a technical document in our framework, then you can go and write your first document and use these tools from the start. Either way, we hope you keep an eye on the Release Notes from each new version of Aras Innovator to see what we’re bringing you next!