Posts Tagged ‘technical communication’
On the Idea of “Product Evangelist” in Technical Communications
I love product evangelists for two good reasons: (1) I love software products. I have no idea how we lived back in the 60s and 70s without any software doing all these wonderful things on our desktops, laptops, and mobile devices. (2) I like and admire the product evangelists that I’ve met both in person…
Read More3 Reference Guides I Use Regularly for my Technical Documents
As a technical communicator, I rely on a few reference volumes to keep my technical writing as clean, compact, and correct as possible. Here is my list of three most-favored reference volumes to settle any documentation questions or disputes regarding style, usage, or terminology: 1) Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications, 3rd Edition Curiously…
Read MoreFuture Trends in Technical Documentation
Let’s look briefly at Future Trends in Technical Documentation, shall we? There used to be a time when the question of whether to use FrameMaker or MS Word used to pass for a discussion on the future of technical writing. I’m guilty as charged as well but that was then and this is now. Right…
Read MoreHow to Use Google for Simple Arithmetic Operations and Unit Conversions
Do you know that you don’t really need a calculator for simple arithmetic operations and (selected) unit conversions? You can do the four basic operations comfortably by typing it directly into Google Search Window: You can do square roots and exponents as well: You can use Google for some simple unit and currency conversions as…
Read MoreA FrameMaker Shortcut to Scroll from one Document TAB to Another
Adobe FrameMaker nicely opens all your documents side by side in tabs. Whether they are parts of a book or not, if you have three open FrameMaker documents in your editing window, for example, then you’d have 3 tabs displayed at the top of your screen: Here is an easy way to scroll and navigate…
Read More6 Different Ways to Distribute Large Technical Documents
© 2011 Ugur Akinci Large files have always been a distribution headache for technical writers. PDF files, book files of all kinds, PPT files need to be planned and generated always with an eye towards their distribution. If your files are too big to send around, review and approval processes will be jeopardized. Here are…
Read More6 Future Career Paths for Technical Communicators
There are not one but multiple future career paths for technical communicators. Technical communication is changing rapidly like any other thing in our world. Report by The Writers Block A new report by The Writers Block, “Technical Communication Landscape Survey Report (Bangalore, Karnataka, India)”, lists the following future specializations for technical communicators: Technical writing Instructional…
Read MoreTECHNICAL BOOK REVIEW: “Survey of Technical Communication Landscape in India” by TWB
“Survey of Technical Communication Landscape in India, 1st Biennial Report (2011-12)” by The Writers Block (TWB), one of India’s outstanding technical communication training and outsourcing companies, is an authoritative reference volume that all technical communicators should read. Despite its cover price ($499 or 22,797 Rupee), this 158-page report succeeds in giving a detailed snapshot of…
Read MoreHow to Name Files in a Technical Documentation Project
© 2011 Ugur Akinci Naming files — it sounds like something easy to do, doesn’t it? But I know from experience: it can actually become a very complicated and tangled-up affair with productivity-killing consequences. The root of the problem lies in the fact that the name should make sense not only for the creator, the…
Read MoreFrameMaker – How to Draw Lines by Default Above or Below any Header
Imagine every time you use a certain paragraph tag in FrameMaker, you’d like to draw automatically lines (single, double, etc.) above and/or below that header or piece of text. You can do that easily by using the ADVANCED tab in PARAGRAPH DESIGNER. Follow these steps: (1) Open your FrameMaker document: Let’s imagine you’d like to…
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