AECMA Simplified English  

ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English (formerly AECMA Simplified English) is a specification for writing aircraft documentation. The principles can be applied to all industry sectors. ASD-STE100 provides a set of writing rules and a dictionary of words and their meanings. It has a limited number of words; a limited number of clearly defined meanings for each word; a limited number of parts of speech for each word; a set of rules for writing text. This article outlines the standard, and shows how it helps to prevent ambiguity in text.

Unwalla, Mike. ISTC (2004). Articles>Writing>Minimalism>Controlled Vocabulary

Automating Your Word Indexes  

Have you ever tried to create an index in Word? Were you dissatisfied with the options available in the dialogs? There are other features available that can provide you with a higher level of control over the structure of the index. This article gives you an overview of advanced indexing techniques; see Word’s online help for details. The menu sequences are for Word 2000; there are slight differences in Word 2002.

Unwalla, Mike. TechScribe (2003). Articles>Indexing>Software>Microsoft Word

Creating Coloured Hyperlinks in an Index in a PDF File

This article explains how to create coloured hyperlinks in an index in a PDF file, using Microsoft Word as the source document for the PDF file. Many authors create PDF files using Word as the source document. Most Word-to-PDF converters create a hyperlink in the PDF file if a hyperlink exists in the Word document. Unfortunately, Word does not create hyperlinked cross-references in an index, so no PDF creation tool can directly generate a hyperlinked index. The Sonar Bookends Activate plug-in for Acrobat creates hyperlinks for page numbers in indexes in PDF files. The plug-in does not change the colour of new hyperlinks, and it does not create visible rectangles for the hyperlinks. This article explains how to colour the hyperlinks in the Word source document using macro.

Unwalla, Mike. TechScribe (2006). Articles>Indexing>User Interface>Adobe Acrobat

Going Solo  

These workshop notes list many of the things that you will need to consider if you intend to become a freelance technical communicator in the UK. The main topics are: your motivation; getting help with your business; legal and administrative issues; business infrastructure; working practices; advertising and publicity; office environment. The workshop was presented at the ISTC Conference, Bosworth, 2002.

Unwalla, Mike. TechScribe (2002). Careers>Freelance>Regional>United Kingdom

How to Write a Tender  

For practical purposes, we may say that a tender is 'an offer to do work.' This article discusses quotations for work, standard terms and conditions and letters of agreement. The article is written within the context of UK legislation. It originally appeared in Communicator 7:1, Spring 2001.

Unwalla, Mike. TechScribe (2001). Careers>Writing>Business Communication>Contracts

LaTeX: an Introduction  

LaTeX is a powerful typesetting system that is used for producing scientific and mathematical documents of high typographic quality. Unlike WYSIWYG tools such as FrameMaker and Word, it uses plain text files that contain formatting commands. It is big, open source, and used by many technical publishing companies. This article overviews LaTeX, and directs you to sources of information.

Unwalla, Mike. TechScribe (2006). Articles>Software>TeX>LaTeX

Raising the Standards

Experts from around the World are working on a new ISO standard for software documentation (Guidelines for the design and preparation of user documentation for application software). This article outlines how the standard is being produced, its current status and what it contains.

Unwalla, Mike. TechScribe (2003). Articles>Documentation>Standards

Usability, Testing and Documentation

The three disciplines of usability, testing, and documentation are important to the success of hi-tech products. These three areas are often overlooked, but they have a profound affect on the end user's experience of a software product. As customers become more perceptive about IT, their expectations rise. Since customers now have more choice than ever, to be successful, a software product needs to stand out from the crowd. This article explains why the three disciplines are important to the overall success of a software solution. It concludes with recommendations for obtaining the best return on investment.

Unwalla, Mike, Andrew Swartz and Bill Matthews. TechScribe (2006). Articles>Usability>Testing>Documentation

Users' Documentation Preferences

At a user group meeting in 2007, TechScribe researched users' experiences of the software documentation that they receive. Do they prefer online or printed documentation? Do they read the manual, or do they call the help desk? How important is background information? Which is more useful, a 'how to' user guide or a reference manual? Do people prefer explanations using visuals, descriptions, or a combination? Read the survey to find the answers (we obtained 29 responses from 64 attendees).

Unwalla, Mike. TechScribe (2007). Articles>Documentation>Audience Analysis>Technical Writing

Web Indexing: Extending the Functionality of HTML Indexer

HTML Indexer is a commercial stand-alone indexing tool that is designed solely for the indexing of web sites. This article shows how to extend the functionality of HTML Indexer by including special codes in the entries, then post-processing the generated HTML to obtain final HTML.

Unwalla, Mike. TechScribe (2006). Articles>Web Design>Indexing>Software

Case Study: Reaching New Markets Through Clear Documentation

Triangle is a systems integrator in the UK with about 150 employees. It extended the functionality of the InfoGenesis point of sale software onto hand-held terminals. To turn this into a commercial off-the-shelf product, Triangle needed clear documentation for resellers and for staff managers at customer sites. Triangle lacked the expertise needed to produce effective documentation, so it outsourced the documentation development. The new documentation enables Triangle to roll out the software internationally using resellers, and keeps Triangle's support costs to a minimum.

Unwalla, Mike. TechScribe (2008). Articles>Documentation>Case Studies