Archive for 2011
How to Insert a Placeholder to a MS Word Document for a Book or Article Citation
Introduction Insert a placeholder to an MS Word document when, while working on the document, you would not have the citations at your fingertips. Problem Yet if you stop to make a search for the citations you may lose your rhythm and momentum. Solution So it makes sense to keep going full-steam ahead and to…
Read MoreThe Difference a Comma Makes
© Ugur Akinci Technical writers must watch their punctuation like a hawk because of the dramatic difference a misplaced punctuation mark makes. Here is a great example from the Understanding Uncertainty web site: “how unlikely the result is due to chance” versus “how unlikely the result is, due to chance” Click here to read the…
Read MoreEbook Self-Publishing Alternatives: Amazon Kindle, Moodle, Tizra
Every week I hear about yet another self-publishing alternative platform. Today I had the chance to have a look at Tizra.com and wanted to compare it to Kindle and Moodle, two of my favorite publishing platforms. KINDLE (http://kdp.amazon.com/) The advantage of Kindle is obvious: where else can you expose your content to millions of daily…
Read MoreScoville Pepper Heat Chart – Information Graphics that Shape the Conversation
© Ugur Akinci Sometimes information graphics hit the bulls-eye. Here is one such graphic, throwing precious light on a recent news event: spraying the UC Davis students with “pepper gas.” When I first read this story, I couldn’t help but assume that “pepper gas” would hurt just like jalapeno pepper, but only a lot more…
Read MoreHow to Combine Individual MS Word Files into a Master Document with IncludeText Field
The question of how to combine individual MS Word Files into a Master Document is a question that most technical writers face frequently during their careers. Perhaps you work in a large company and you need to pull together separate Word files into an updated document; or perhaps the task is to combine files written…
Read MoreOccupational Outlook for Technical Writers: My Opinions and the Facts
From time to time I hear from technical writers who had their own share from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 30s. There is no doubt, the market right now is not as good as it had been just four or five years earlier. But I still have reasons to maintain…
Read MoreFactors Determining the Success of MS Word Master Document Feature
© Ugur Akinci MS Word’s Master Document feature is a useful one for creating compound documents out of smaller individual ones. However, like anything else in life, this feature also has its limits and weaknesses. As has been pointed out by many experts in the industry, Master Documents are prone to get corrupted. But, under…
Read MoreTechnical Writing: Corporate Payroll or Freelancing?
Should you choose freelancing or go on a corporate payroll to work as a technical communicator? I get this question from my readers on a more or less regular basis: “Should I quit my company and set up shop as an independent entrepreneur offering technical writing services? Should I just launch a web site and…
Read MoreHigh Entry Threshold for New DITA Writers
High Entry Threshold for New DITA Writers is a rarely admitted issue for technical communicators. I receive reader letters about DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) these days that more or less ask the same question: how difficult is it for a technical writer to specialize in single-sourcing and structured authoring? Should they learn DITA? And…
Read MoreHow to Configure the Web Settings of your MS Word Document
Did you know that you can save your MS Word 2010 documents as HTML web pages? TIP: Actually this is one of the ways in which you can easily transform your Word document into Amazon Kindle documents. For that purpose, save your Word file as “Web Page, Filtered” before importing it as an HTML file…
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