FAQ Support Page

This page gives support information for FAQ and FAQ (Markdown Edition).

We want you to have a great experience with FAQ, so we put this page together to give you advice on the best way to use it, and supply the answers to the questions we most commonly receive via our user support mailbox.

You can read it through as a User Guide, or skip to the part you are most interested in.

What is FAQ for, and what does it do?
Any Tips On Where To Start?
Whats the best way to break things up into separate elements?
Can I store complete emails, too?
How do I add images to a response?
What do the different compose options do?
When should I use separate topics?
Where can I find details on Markdown?
Is FAQ compatible with MailShot?
I set up my first topic- where did it go?
How do I rename a topic?
Any other tips and advice for getting the best out of FAQ?
How can I get help with FAQ?
What if I have a suggestion, comment or request for FAQ?

What is FAQ for, and what does it do?

FAQ* is designed to make customer support and other forms of repetitive email communication easier.

FAQ holds the answers to the most common questions your users ask you by email, along with all the other repeating elements that you might need in your reply: like introductions and signing-off messages; supplemental advice and information; and images (which could be maps, diagrams or screenshots).

You may find this video helpful, in it we explain how FAQ works, and then show it being used to answer a complex customer email with a few taps.

You can rapidly select from those elements to compose your reply, then click the compose button at the bottom left of the screen and FAQ will combine the result into an email for you, or place it in the clipboard ready to paste into your reply email.

* FAQ stands for “Frequently Asked Questions”- traditionally a page on a website with the answers to the questions your users most often ask.
You are reading one now.

Any tips on where to start?

FAQ depends upon the information you put in it, so it will reward time spent setting it up.

Our suggested approach is to start with a single, popular topic first, and go through some of your recent emails, copying paragraphs and information that you expect to re-use in handling this sort of enquiry. This will help you to sound natural, as it is based on things you have already said. If you have an existing “Frequently Asked Questions” list for the topic online, this is also a great source for your answers.

Start answering questions on this topic using FAQ, adding extra answers as you need them, then once you have the hang of how you want to use FAQ you can broaden out the topics you cover with it.

We included a snapshot of our support database for “MailShot”, as an example of how you might approach setting things up.

What’s the best way to break things up into separate elements?

We find that it works best to store one or more paragraphs at a time, enough to wholly answer a particular aspect of a user problem. Don’t try to break everything up into individual sentences, as this will just make it harder to put together in a meaningful way. As a guideline, we would expect to select only 3 or 4 elements when putting our typical reply together, including the welcome and closing phrases.

The default is for FAQ to treat each element as a new paragraph, adding in carriage returns at the end for you, but an option in the Settings app on your device (scroll down until you see the FAQ icon in Settings) allows you to change this spacing between elements from “Paragraph” to “New Line”, or “None”.

You get an opportunity to edit the result before you send, and we would definitely urge you to always check your reply at this point. It is easy to amend or delete a sentence or two if you feel it is not quite right.

Can I store complete emails, too?

Sure, you can also store complete replies as a quick response to your most common situations if you wish. (You may find it practical to keep those complete email replies separate, in their own topic, if you want to mix methods. Its your choice.)

How do I add images to a response?

Go to the photo app (or other image source) and tap and hold on the image to copy it to the clipboard. Switch back to FAQ and tap the + button for the section you want to paste the image into, when you add a new element with an image in the clipboard it will ask if you want to use it to create an element.

You will be prompted to reduce the image size to one of a number of popular email reader sizes before you paste, this helps to keep the storage requirements of the app to a minimum on your device, and requires less wireless data for backup and sync. Once the image is pasted into FAQ you can delete the source image from your device if you want to.

What do the different compose options do?

When you select “compose” at the bottom left of the screen, you have three options available to you:

“Email With Attachments” creates an email, with any selected images included as attachments. This is most useful when you are originating your email in FAQ, rather than replying.

“Clipboard (Images Last)” will paste all the selected text into the clipboard in order. Any images selected will be included last. This is because you cannot really be sure whether people you email will see images in the correct place, due to the wide range of email readers available. When you use this option you can say something like “see the diagram at the bottom”, and know that it will always appear at the bottom.

“Clipboard (Images Inline)” will paste the selected text and images into the clipboard in the order they are listed. Note that whilst images will be inserted in order when pasted into Mail, you can’t always be absolutely sure how they will appear at the other end, as different email clients handle inline images in different ways. Note that when you choose this option there will always be at least one carriage return between elements, even if “none” is selected in the Settings app for spacing .

For replying to customer emails, the middle option (“Images Last”) is probably the most useful. After reading the original email in Mail, you would switch to FAQ to select the elements you want, tap “compose” to copy them to the clipboard, then switch back to Mail and paste into the top of your reply.

When should I use separate topics?

Separating into Topics makes it easier for you to find and select the right things quickly when composing your response.

Think of Topics as a way to keep things apart- you might use it to separate different products, sports, school topics or projects where you would expect not to combine them into the same email. For example, as an app developer we use topics to separate the support information for the different apps we produce (and we repeat a few common elements. like opening and closing phrases, in each topic.)

How can I get help with Markdown?

The special Markdown edition of FAQ includes support for Markdown, an easy way to mark up your text with formatting, text size, lists web links and linked images using a plain text editor. These are then used in your email, which is sent in HTML format.

A very brief “Cheat sheet” is included for Markdown in every new project, so the information is always at your fingertips.

You can read more about Markdown itself on the Daring Fireball website. (A link is also provided to that page from the support button on the title page of the Markdown edition of FAQ.)

For a nicely-paced introduction to Markdown, we can recommend The MacSparky Markdown Field Guide. This ebook version also includes video to explain many of the features of the language.

Is FAQ compatible with MailShot?

MailShot is our popular group email app that creates a special group contact for groups of your colleagues or friends, which can be used from within all of your favourite apps to send email directly to the group.

FAQ is no exception, you can use both apps together to send reminders or information out to a team or a class of colleagues at once, emailing directly from within FAQ.

I set up my first topic- where did it go?

Occasionally someone sets up their first topic, but when they go to run FAQ again they just see the original sample topic name and think their work has been lost.

In this case please take a look inside the topic, to see if your work is there, and perhaps consider renaming the topic.

How do I rename a topic?

To rename a topic, just tap “edit” at top right of the topics list page, then select the topic you wish to rename.

Any other tips and advice for getting the best out of FAQ?

• Always review the completed message before you hit “send”, just to spot any obvious errors.
• Take the opportunity to add a little personalisation, if you can (at least adding the addresses name in at the top!) FAQ takes care of the dull bits of customer support, but your reply doesn’t have to feel like a standard letter, and users appreciate it more if it doesn’t.
• Don’t forget to review and update your answers every so often, so your information remains current.

How can I get help with FAQ?

We are always happy to help (and customer support is the reason we developed this app, after all) so please drop us a line on faq-support@solubleapps.com if you have any problems this page can’t solve. We’ll do our very best to help you.

What if I have a suggestion, comment or request for FAQ?

We love to hear and better understand how people are using our apps, and are always looking for ways to improve them further through future updates, so please drop us a line to faq@solubleapps.com.

If you get the chance, we also always appreciate reviews or ratings on the App Store if you find FAQ useful. A “Rate” shortcut button is also provided for this on the title page.