Archive for 2013
New Video Online Course: "Learn Plain Writing Today!"
© Ugur Akinci We are happy and pronounce our newest online video course: Learn plain writing from a veteran writer with over 15 years of hi-tech Fortune 100 experience. Learn the basics of communicating in plain English for maximum success and productivity in your business and personal life. What’s more, if you happen to work…
Read MoreHow to Remember When to Spell Out Numbers in MS Word
Here is an easy way to remember when to spell out numbers in MS Word… You probably wonder when to write a number in Arabic numerals and when to spell it out openly. You don’t have to guess that anymore. MS Word has a grammar setting that lets you know whether you are doing it…
Read MoreDifferent Word Count Options in MS Word
There are different Word count options in MS Word. There are several ways to count the words automatically in a MS Word document. Here is a sample MS Word document with body text, text box, end note, and footnotes: (Click to enlarge the image) 1) Count every word, EXCEPT textboxes, footnotes and endnotes The first one…
Read MoreHow to Use the Paragraph Designer in Adobe FrameMaker
How to Build an Isometric, 2-Point, or 3-Point Perspective in Technical Illustrations
David Herrick TCC Guest Writer & Sr. Illustrator Here are some of the most commonly used perspective types in illustrations in general: Isometric View All parallel lines remain parallel. 2 point perspective All horizontal parallel Lines recede to Vanishing Points. Vertical parallel lines remain vertical and parallel to each other. 2 point perspective In this…
Read MoreTechnical Illustration: How to Draw Crisscrossing Circuit Wires with Adobe Illustrator
David Herrick TCC Guest Writer & Sr. Illustrator The simplest way to indicate a criss-cross in a wiring diagram (or anything, really) using Adobe Illustrator. If you have a sketch or diagram already, scan it and save the scan as a JPEG or PNG, then open a new document in Adobe Illustrator. Choose “place” from…
Read More10 Great Features that FrameMaker has but Word Doesn’t
I love and use FrameMaker and Word both in my daily work. But here are ten good reasons why I choose FrameMaker (FM) over Word when it comes to long complicated technical documents: 1) Page templates. If I wish to, I can make every page of a FM document use a different page template without…
Read MoreTechnical Book Review: “Writing Plain Instructions” by Marc Achtelig
“Writing Plain Instructions,” with the subtitle “How to write user manuals, online help, and other forms of user assistance that every user understands” by Marc Achtelig is a great addition to the existing literature on technical writing. Marc, a veteran technical communicator from Germany with two engineering degrees, is a detail-oriented author who covers his topic at…
Read MoreFrameMaker and Word: Resize Table Columns
How to Create a DITA Topic Object in FrameMaker
Welcome to my tutorial on How to Create a DITA Topic Object in FrameMaker FrameMaker (FM) has a very powerful and built-in DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) engine under its hood. Also known as “structured authoring,” this functionality comes with the FrameMaker as a default feature. When you buy FrameMaker, you do not need to…
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