1. Click the Application Menu button at the top left of the Ribbon;
2. Select the New page;
3. Choose Empty Project from the available Project Types;
4. On the New Project dialog, type a descriptive Project Name for the new project; 
5. You can optionally choose a specific directory in which to save your project by editing the Project Directory field; the project will by default be saved to a subdirectory of the default New / Save directory which is configurable in the Options editor (Paths page).
6. Click Ok;

The new empty documentation project will be created and opened for edit. You can now add the .NET Assemblies that you would like to document:

1. Click the Add .NET Assembly Ribbon button on the Project Ribbon tab.
2. Use the displayed file dialog to select the .NET assembly or assemblies that you would like to document in this project.

The selected .NET assembly or assemblies will be added to the Project Explorer under the Assemblies node. Expand down through each assembly node to tick / untick individual namespaces or types in order to include / exclude them; by default private and internal types are excluded (unticked).

A Content File will be created and added to the project under the Content Files node for each .NET Assembly added to the project. You can use the Content File to author additional content in the pages that Document! X will automatically generate.

You can use the .NET Xml comments feature to create documentation content in source code. Document! X supports all of the standard .NET Xml comment tags.

You can either author .NET Xml comments manually in the source code editor or make use of the Document! X Visual Comment Editor integrated directly with Visual Studio 2015, 2017 and 2019:

1. Open the source code file that you wish to author documentation Xml comments for (C#, VB.NET and C++ supported).
2. Click the  Edit Documentation toolbar button on the main Visual Studio toolbar.
3. A Document! X Visual Comment Editor window will open. The tree on the left hand side allows you to select the code elements in the code file - select a code element and you can edit the documentation directly in the right hand side of the editor. Content that you author is written back to your source code as standard .NET Xml comments.

Visual Comment Editor Movies

If you would like to supplement the content of the pages automatically generated by Document! X and HelpStudio outside of the source code, you can do so using the Document! X and HelpStudio Content File Editor.

The Content File Editor allows you to review and author content for any item for which a reference documentation page is generated.

To open the Content File Editor:

1. Expand the Content Files node on the Project Explorer.
2. Locate the Content File for the item you wish to author content for.
3. Right click on the Content File and select Edit.
4. The Content File will be opened for edit. The tree on the left hand side of the editor shows you a hierarchical view of the item you are documenting.
5. Drill down and select an item from the tree and the related documentation pages will be shown in the right hand side of the editor.
6. Type directly in the editable portions of the page on the right hand side of the editor.
7. Select a specific content type from the toolbar / vertical menu to edit a specific type of content (e.g. Summary, See Also, Keywords).

Content File Editor Movies

Conceptual information is a key part of reference documentation, providing a high level introduction, tutorials or other conceptual information. You can easily create conceptual topics in Document! X and HelpStudio.

1. Click the New Topic button on the Project Ribbon tab, or use the Ctrl+T shortcut key.
2. The new Topic will be created in the currently selected Topic Category on the Project Explorer (or under the (Un-categorized) node if no category is selected) and will be opened for edit.
3. Type your conceptual content directly in the editable area of the Topic Editor.

You can find more information on Topic Editing in the Topic Editor topic.

Conceptual Authoring Movies

The settings that govern .NET documentation generation are defined in the Build Profile editor. In a new project there is a single Build Profile but you can define many build profiles if you want to create multiple outputs with different settings.

To edit .NET documentation settings:

1. Expand the Build Profiles node in the Project Explorer.
2. Select the Build Profile that you wish to edit.
3. Right click on the Build Profile and select Edit.
4. The Build Profile will be opened for edit.

In the Build Profile editor, you can find the various .NET Settings pages under the Reference Documentation section.

An essential part of delivering a complete documentation set is ensuring that all the items have been documented. Document! X includes the Undocumented Items tool to quickly and easily identify undocumented items.

To identify undocumented items:

1. On the Tools Ribbon Tab, click the Undocumented Items button;
2. If your project contains more than one Build Profile, select the Profile for which you wish to find undocumented items;
3. Tick the Item Types (e.g. Class, Method, Schema, Column) that you wish to check for undocumented items;
4. Tick the Content Types that items must have to be considered documented (just Summary by default);
5. Tick the Content Sources that should be used when checking for content;
6. Click the Execute button. Any undocumented items will be listed in the results grid.

See the Undocumented Items topic for more information.

Find Undocumented Items Movies

Click the  Build Ribbon button on the Project ribbon tab to build your .NET reference documentation.

By default the generated documentation will be integrated with Visual Studio on the local machine. Refer to the Deployment topic for more information on how to deploy your documentation to other machines.