Archive for March 2013
How to Calculate Optimal Product Mix with MS Excel “Solver” to Maximize Profits
Imagine you’re running a manufacturing plant, producing hats, shirts, gloves, and other similar items. You know the following: The number of each item you are now manufacturing. The number of labor units you need to produce each item. The number of raw material units you need to produce each item. The unit price, unit cost,…
Read MoreHow to Print Invisible TOC and Index Markers of a MS Word Technical Document
A well designed and written index is an indispensable component of any technical document. As an indexer and technical author there might be occasions when you’d like to print a list of invisible TOC and index markers of a MS Word Technical Document which is a task that requires some experience. In this post we…
Read MoreHow to Calculate Optimal Product Mix with MS Excel “Solver” to Maximize Profits
To calculate optimal product mix with MS Excel “Solver” to maximize profits is easier than you thought. Here is the situation: Imagine you’re running a manufacturing plant, producing hats, shirts, gloves, and other similar items. You know the following: The number of each item you are now manufacturing. The number of labor units you need…
Read MoreImportance of Technical Communication at MIT
© Ugur Akinci By underlining the importance of technical communication education at august MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Sam Shames (“Opinion: Beyond technical communication“) has made an important point that we as technical writers should also pay attention to: Technical communication is not only the art of writing reports, emails, memos, and similar “business items”…
Read MoreHow to Filter a MS Excel Data Set with Multiple Criteria (Advanced Filtering)
© Ugur Akinci Let’s imagine you’re working with the following data set: Let’s say you want to find only those transactions in which SHOES were sold for LESS THAN $20. Follow these steps: (1) Enter a couple of empty rows to the top of your table. (2) Copy your HEADER row and paste it to…
Read MoreHow to Change the SUM of a Range Dynamically in MS Excel
To change the SUM of a Range Dynamically is easier than you thought in MS Excel. Let’s say you have a data table like this: PROBLEM: We want to create a SUM for the GROSS column that would adjust itself dynamically when new sales records are added to the table. How would you do that?…
Read MoreTechnical Writing is Technical Training
“Technical Writing is Technical Training” is probably the summary of my technical communication career. I know my trainer friends will object to this statement but I’ll say it again all the same: “Technical writing is technical training.” Then I’ll add: “It’s the training of a special type.” Or at least it should be. If by…
Read MoreCorrecting Capitalization Errors in MS Excel — How to Retype a List of Names Properly with PROPER Function
© Ugur Akinci Let’s say you have a list of hundreds of names typed with all kinds of capitalization errors: PROBLEM: How can you correct the capitalization errors in every name and make sure each first and last names begins with a CAPITAL letter, followed by lower-case letters? SOLUTION: It’s very easy. Just select a…
Read MoreHow to Display the Last Modification Date of a MS Excel Workbook by Using MS Excel Macro
Time for a simple MS Excel macro. Imagine you have a MS Excel document that is updated regularly or frequently. So you think it’d make sense to display the last date on which the document was modified so that your readers would know how fresh and updated the document is. If you enter the formula…
Read MoreHow Long Should the Appendices of a Technical Document Be?
How long should the appendix or the appendices of a technical document be? This is an interesting question that I haven’t seen discussed earlier anywhere. The question is especially pertinent when the document suffers from “mission creep“, that is, when additional documentation goals get added gradually to the original documentation plan. In such cases, the…
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