Quick Reference Guide Templates
The following quick reference guide templates are sample layouts you can use as starting points when you brainstorm layouts for your documents. To add your quick reference guide here, feel free to send it to me at [email protected].
To read more about quick reference guides and templates, see the following:
- Quick Reference Guides: The Poetry of Technical Writing.
- Quick Reference Guide Formats -- Tips for Finding Attractive Layouts
- STC Presentation this Thursday: "Quick Reference Guides: Short and Sweet Technical Documentation"
- Quick Reference Guides Right Where You Need Them
- Quick Reference Guides: Short and Sweet Documentation
- Documentation Usability: A Few Things I've Learned from Watching Users
- Starting Points with Quick Reference Guides: Gathering Before Designing
- Quick reference guide slides from the Transalpine Conference
- Webinar Recording -- Organizing Help Content: Breaking Out of Topic-Based Hierarchies
- Quick Reference Guide Gallery
Quick Reference Guide Gallery
The following are some quick reference guide layouts you can model your guides after. (Note: I don't have InDesign or Word templates for you to download. You'll need to recreate the template yourself.)
-
- Watershed – front
-
- Watershed – back
-
- Four Columns
-
- Process
-
- Green Simple
-
- Green Simple – back
-
- Four Corners
-
- Four options
-
- Outlook – front
-
- Outlook – back
-
- RX Approver front (Joe Christensen)
-
- RX Approver back (Joe Christensen)
-
- One Process
-
- Blue Standard
-
- RFI – front
-
- RFI – back
-
- 123 – front
-
- 123 – front (by
-
- Cisco
-
- Crazy Workflow (Microsoft)
-
- STC front (Deb Lockwood)
-
- STC back (Deb Lockwood)
About Tom Johnson
I'm an API technical writer based in the Seattle area. On this blog, I write about topics related to technical writing and communication — such as software documentation, API documentation, AI, information architecture, content strategy, writing processes, plain language, tech comm careers, and more. Check out my API documentation course if you're looking for more info about documenting APIs. Or see my posts on AI and AI course section for more on the latest in AI and tech comm.
If you're a technical writer and want to keep on top of the latest trends in the tech comm, be sure to subscribe to email updates below. You can also learn more about me or contact me. Finally, note that the opinions I express on my blog are my own points of view, not that of my employer.