The Most Basic and Indispensable Parts of a User Manual
How do you explain the most important parts of a technical document, say a “User Manual,” to a complete beginner? I actually had that challenge when a student who has registered to one of my online courses admitted that he did not know where to quite begin writing his manual and what to include in…
Read MoreHow 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 More