How to create training materials for software
Most training docs are written from memory, after the fact, with staged screenshots that don't match the real UI. Record the workflow as you run it — the training guide builds itself, step by step.
Ideal for: IT trainers, ops leads, team managers, and anyone responsible for onboarding people onto software.
The time it takes is why they don't exist
Someone needs to document a software workflow. That person opens Word, runs the process, tries to remember what screen came first, takes screenshots one at a time, pastes them in, resizes them, writes around them — three hours later, the doc exists. But the next UI update makes three screenshots wrong, and nobody has three more hours to fix it. So the training materials sit there, quietly incorrect.
Too slow to make
Manually screenshotting each step, resizing images, pasting them into Word, and writing around them takes hours. For a 20-step workflow, you're looking at a half-day project. So it never gets done.
Goes stale after one update
The software changes. A button moves. A menu gets renamed. Now three screenshots in the training doc show the wrong thing. Fixing it requires re-staging screenshots and reformatting the whole section.
Learners skip the text
Long written instructions without screenshots get skimmed. Learners look for the visual cues — the buttons, the panels, the confirmation screens — and when those aren't there, they give up and ask someone directly.
What good training materials actually contain
The learner's job is to follow the process without asking for help. Every section below exists to make that possible.
Overview
One or two sentences: what does this training cover and when does someone need to follow it? A learner should know in fifteen seconds whether this is the right guide.
Prerequisites
What accounts, permissions, or tools does the learner need before they start step one? Missing prerequisites cause people to get four steps in and have to stop. List them explicitly.
Steps — with a screenshot at every clickauto-captured
Each step needs a screenshot of the actual screen, not a description of it. The screenshot tells the learner they're in the right place. The step title tells them what to do. If UIHike captured the step, both are already there.
Notes and gotchas
Anything that trips people up: error messages they might see, approvals that take time, fields that behave differently in certain roles. These turn a training document into a real guide instead of an idealized one.
The done state
What does the screen look like when the process is complete? A confirmation message, a status change, a dashboard update. Without this, learners can't tell if they succeeded.
How to create training materials in less than an hour
Start the recorder before you touch the software. From there, the training doc builds as you work.
Pick the workflow that generates the most follow-up questions
Start with the one process you explain most often. Not the most complex — the most repeated. If you walk three different people through it per week, that's the one to document first. It will prove the method and immediately reduce interruptions.
Open UIHike and start a new project before you open the software
This order matters. Start the recorder first, then navigate to the software you're documenting. Every click from that point is captured as a numbered step with its screenshot and URL. If you open the software first, you'll miss the early navigation steps.
Run the workflow at normal speed
Don't slow down or narrate. Just do the process the way you'd actually do it. UIHike captures what you see at each step — the real screen state, not a reconstruction. If the workflow crosses browser tabs, a desktop app, and an Excel file, all three land in the same project in sequence.
Review the steps and add context a screenshot can't show
Go through the step list. Most titles are already accurate. Rename anything too vague: 'Click' becomes 'Click Submit in the Approval panel.' Add a note to any step where something unexpected might happen. Redact any password fields or customer data — draw a box over them and they're covered in every export.
Add annotations to call out exactly where to click
For any step where the learner might look at the wrong part of the screen, add an arrow or a callout box directly on the screenshot. These sit as a layer on top of the original — you can adjust or remove them later without touching the underlying image.
Export in the format your audience needs — or share the link
For a live training session: export to PowerPoint and each step becomes one slide. For a self-guided reference: share the link — the learner opens it in a browser, no account needed. For a team wiki: export to Markdown. For someone who needs a file: export to PDF or Word. Same project, every format.
Four reasons UIHike training materials stay accurate
Every step has the real screenshot, not a staged one
UIHike captures the actual screen state at the moment you clicked: the real UI, the real data in the fields, the real button that was available. If the learner sees something different on their screen, they can compare exactly what they see to the screenshot and spot the discrepancy.
Covers every app in the workflow, not just the browser
Most documentation tools only capture browser tabs. UIHike captures the browser, desktop apps, PDFs, and Excel spreadsheets in the same numbered sequence. If someone's training workflow moves across three different applications, one recording catches all of it.
Export to PowerPoint for live training sessions
When you export a UIHike project to PowerPoint, each step becomes one slide: the screenshot fills the slide and the step title appears below it. Pull it up in a meeting and walk the room through the process, one click at a time. No rebuilding the deck from scratch.
Update one step when the software changes
When the UI changes, you don't re-record the whole training guide. Open the project, recapture the affected step, replace the screenshot, and the shared link reflects the update immediately. The low cost of updating a single step is why these training materials stay accurate instead of going stale.
Document the workflow while you run it
Pick one process you walk people through more than twice a week. Record it in UIHike, send the link, and stop re-explaining it.
The training guide is done before you close the browser tab.
Common questions about creating training materials
What should training materials for software include?
Good software training materials include a brief overview of what the process accomplishes, any prerequisites (accounts, access, tools), a step-by-step walkthrough with a screenshot at every step, notes on common mistakes or gotchas, and a clear description of what done looks like. Screenshots are the most important part: without them, learners spend more time figuring out where to click than actually learning.
How do you make training materials for software quickly?
Use a step recorder. Open UIHike, start a project, then work through the software workflow at normal speed. Every click is captured automatically as a numbered step with its screenshot and the URL it came from. When you finish, review the steps, clean up the titles, and export or share the link. The whole thing takes as long as running the process once — no staging screenshots, no reformatting in Word.
What format is best for software training materials?
It depends on how the training is delivered. For live training sessions, a PowerPoint deck works well — each step becomes one slide. For self-guided learning, a shared link is better: the learner can follow along at their own pace and refer back to specific steps. For reference documentation that lives in a wiki, Markdown works best. UIHike exports to all four formats from the same project.
How do you keep training materials up to date when software changes?
Re-capture only the step that changed. With UIHike, you open the project, re-record the affected step, replace the old screenshot, and the shared link reflects the change immediately. This is why step-by-step training materials stay accurate when they're built capture-first: updating one step costs almost nothing, so it actually happens instead of getting deferred.
Can I create training materials without taking screenshots manually?
Yes. UIHike captures a screenshot automatically at every click during a recording session. You don't take a single screenshot manually — the tool records the real UI state at each step, including the URL and the element you interacted with. After the recording ends, you review the steps and add any context a screenshot can't show.
How do you create training materials that work for non-technical users?
Three things help non-technical learners: real screenshots (not descriptions), step numbers they can track, and a clear indication of what to click. UIHike gives you all three automatically. You can also add annotation arrows and highlight boxes over a screenshot to call out exactly where to look — without changing the original image.
Related reading
How to build a software onboarding guide
The same capture-first approach applied to new employee onboarding — less time to first-productive-day.
How to document a process
The core method behind every training guide: capture as you work, clean up the steps, send the link.
How to write an SOP
When training materials become standard operating procedures: five sections every SOP needs.
Your next training session doesn't need a slide deck you built from scratch
Record the workflow once. Export to PowerPoint, share the link, or both. UIHike handles the screenshots — you handle the knowledge.