How to Use Right Chevron (>) Correctly in Procedural Writing
RIGHT CHEVRON (>) is used in technical documents to denote a SERIES of SEQUENTIAL ACTIONS. If you’re writing a software or hardware manual, the changes are those actions would be “GUI actions,” that is, describing what the user should do on the screen with a mouse, keyboard shortcut, or a tablet pen. If you first…
Read MoreComparing Adobe InDesign with Adobe FrameMaker
I’ve been comparing Adobe InDesign with Adobe FrameMaker for the last few weeks, trying to gauge the weak and strong points of each powerhouse application. Here is a summary of my findings: 1) Master Pages Both applications use master pages. That’s good. In both, you can assign any master page to any body page. 2)…
Read MoreLori Meyer – a Technical Communication Interview
Lori Meyer is a veteran software technical communicator who has documented products for the telecommunications, business service management, and information security fields. She is an STC Fellow and volunteer for several STC communities. Lori blogs at http://lrmeyerwriter.wordpress.com. 1. How long have you been a technical communicator? Where do you work right now? How would you…
Read MoreTechnical Writer Salaries by Hi-Tech Company
© Ugur Akinci Here is an interesting source that lists the salary range for various categories of technical writers by company: http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/technical-writer-salary-SRCH_KO0,16.htm Since sometimes such web pages are removed from the server, let’s summarize the annual salary ranges for technical writers by hi-tech company: Cisco $76,000 – $107,000 CA Technologies $62,000 – $99,000 Microsoft $76,000…
Read MoreDocument Navigation Sidebar in MS Word
MS Word has a feature that I love to use and some writers seem to be unaware of. Word has a really great DOCUMENT NAVIGATION SIDEBAR with which you can directly go to any part of your document that starts with one of the standard Heading paragraph styles. It’s basically a list of ANCHOR POINTS listed…
Read MoreThe Worst and Best Review Scenarios for Technical Documents
Review process is where most technical documents either sink or swim: either they improve as a result of to-the-point and clear comments or they become muddled and actually deteriorate as a result of overlapping and conflicting feedback comments. I believe the quality and outcome of a review process has a lot more to do with the way…
Read MoreAdobe InDesign for Publishing Technical Documents on iPhone and iPad
I’ve been studying structured-authoring and DITA for some time with an eye towards publishing technical documents on mobile platforms like iPad and iPhone. I always thought that was the natural way to re-purpose and adapt my FrameMaker documents for the digital media. Recently, however, I became aware of another possibility as I started to study…
Read MoreBOOK REVIEW: Microsoft Manual of Style – 4th Edition is Out
Here is the 4th edition of a favorite of mine – Microsoft Manual of Style. I forgot the number of times in my career when this authoritative reference volume helped me settle the style arguments that would never have been settled otherwise. The fourth edition is a proof that Microsoft kept up well with the…
Read MoreThree Different Roles in Author-it Integrated Technical Publishing Platform
© Ugur Akinci Gone are the times when technical writers used to design their own pages, decide on the character and paragraph styles, write the content, and then publish their work. Almost every integrated technical documentation platform these days separate the role of template makers from those who actually compile the content and sit down and write…
Read MoreHow to Add a SEARCH Bookmark to a PDF Document
Usually a PDF document’s bookmarks are generated automatically by the “Distiller engine” based on the paragraph tags you define in the PDF configuration settings. These are usually based on standard tags like “Heading 1”, “Heading 2”, “Chapter Title” etc. But what if you also wanted to add a SEARCH button to your bookmarks so that…
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