http://tc.eserver.org/publisher/Technical_Writer A listing of works published by Technical Writer in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Technical_Writer http://tc.eserver.org/35544.html http://tc.eserver.org/35544.html The technical writing process consists of four main phases. These are planning, writing, delivery, archiving. These phases are not necessarily set in stone and some variations do exist. Every writer is different and they each have their own way of writing that is distinct. http://tc.eserver.org/35545.html http://tc.eserver.org/35545.html The technical writing process consists of four main phases. These are planning, writing, delivery, archiving. These phases are not necessarily set in stone and some variations do exist. Every writer is different and they each have their own way of writing that is distinct. http://tc.eserver.org/35546.html http://tc.eserver.org/35546.html Many organizations produce in-house tools or modify commercially-available tools for their own use. These tools should get documented so they are of use to others in the organization. If this documentation is not created or is poorly written, it costs you twice. http://tc.eserver.org/32079.html http://tc.eserver.org/32079.html In SharePoint, we are likely to think of developers as people who work to customise SharePoint, but there are a lot of developers out there who are simply end users of SharePoint. How do they like the system? http://tc.eserver.org/32081.html http://tc.eserver.org/32081.html Joomla is more complex than WordPress but it has more power. Because it’s a real content management system—unlike WordPress which is a blog with content management capabilities—you don’t have to customise it to make it look like one. Other people have also created templates you can use. http://tc.eserver.org/32082.html http://tc.eserver.org/32082.html I know that some users of high-end CMS’s may dispute this definition, as a high-end CMS does a lot more. But what is a content management system really? It is content, stored in some kind of database, accessed via a front end. That is exactly what WordPress is. http://tc.eserver.org/32083.html http://tc.eserver.org/32083.html Microsoft has a lot of information on their sites about these products. Unfortunately, I can never find it. I usually only know it’s there when I stumble on it months after I really needed to know it. The steepest part of the learning curve is at the start. Likewise with another program I use occasionally—DITA. DITA is an xml schema used for writing documentation. http://tc.eserver.org/32084.html http://tc.eserver.org/32084.html I spent the last three days at the AODC. Lots to think about, which I may cover in other blogs, but here are some general impressions. Of course, these are my own impressions, and it may be just who I talked to on the day. http://tc.eserver.org/32085.html http://tc.eserver.org/32085.html The Content Wrangler’s 10 DITA lessons learned from Tech Writers in the Trenches really nails down some vital things you should know if you want to implement DITA. More than that though, you can apply the lessons learned here to almost any project, not just technical writing and not just implementing new software. http://tc.eserver.org/32086.html http://tc.eserver.org/32086.html First of all, understand that you don’t have to learn it. Every year more and more toolds come out that help place a layer between you and the native XML. In a few years time you will hardly even realise there is XML underneath. http://tc.eserver.org/32087.html http://tc.eserver.org/32087.html XML is the future. You hear it at every conference you go to, in every magazine you pick up, in every article you read on-line. For technical writers, right now that future comes down to two products—DocBook or DITA. But what exactly are they, and which one should you choose? They are schemas for creating XML. http://tc.eserver.org/32045.html http://tc.eserver.org/32045.html I have spent the last two weeks switching between Captivate and Camtasia Studio. Talk about schizophrenic. I spent a lot of time trying to remember which command I had to use in which program, but overall it’s been an interesting experience.