What program should I use to publish a technical manual?

Question

I'm trying to publish a technical manual. Currently it's about 500 pages. I'm using Microsoft Publisher, but because of the size I have to break it into 7 different files, all of which are huge Mb-wise (20Mb each) and slow my computer down. And are a pain to try and print and match page numbers. I've tried using Microsoft Word, but it screws up the formatting badly and it's difficult to work with for what I need. I've tried Adobe Acrobat, but it seems highly unintuitive. And I need to be able to edit this later.

It seems to me there should be a simpler way of doing this.
What kind of program do the professionals use?

At the moment I have the equipment to do small runs (like 5 manuals at a time, and I'm not expecting to need much more.) But if I need to, what would a publishing company expect the file format to be in?

Answer 1

Most professionals will use Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress.

Both are accepted by the majority of publishing firms and can handle large documents. Quark might be a bit better for longer docs and is arguably faster.

Both are relatively expensive and have a steep learning curve. Not sure if either will open/import a Publisher file.

It used to be PageMaker was the standard, but not anymore.

Answer 2

Publishing companies should have the software you used to open your manual and have it printed. You can arrange with them on how it should look on a per page/book basis. that is if you are having trouble because of its size. You may also arrange with them that you must have the chance to preview it first before they have it printed. Or you can just have them arrange or convert it to the file format you want. You may transport your file in zip mode if you are familiar with that or have it burned on data cd. I hope this helps.