The 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…

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Adobe 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…

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How 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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How NOT to Write a User Guide

I don’t like to be negative in general. Life is too short to go around fuming about things that we can’t change. However, there are times when we all need to be critical in order to improve things; especially if they fall within our area of expertise. The other day I bought an iPhone docking…

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Arnold Burian – a Technical Communication Interview

© Ugur Akinci Arnold Burian is a technical communicator from Chicago, IL. He is the founder of Technical Writing World, the social network for technical communicators. In January 2012, Arnold is selected the 63rd most influential technical communicator on MindTouch’s list of 400 Most Influential Technical Communicators. QUESTION (1): How long have you been a…

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Technical versus Content Writing

Technical versus content writing — are they the same or different? The answer is YES and NO. It is similar to content or article writing in the sense that you need to create prose that is easily understood, logically consistent, and conveys useful information. Where it separates from regular non-fiction writing is in its procedural…

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Catherine Hibbard – A Technical Communication Interview

We’re kicking off the new year with a new series of interviews with veteran technical writers and communicators. Our first guest for this column in 2012 is Catherine Hibbard of Cypress Media, a veteran writer and trainer who offers Technical Writing Training and Writing Effective Policies and Procedures Training. In January 2012, she is selected…

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TCC Honored as MindTouch's "Top 10 Most Followed" Web Site

© Ugur Akinci I’m happy to report that, thanks to you TCC readers, our Twitter account @technicalwriter has been selected by MindTouch as one of the “Top 10 Most Followed” technical communication accounts on Twitter. To be included in such a distinguished list of industry pioneers and leaders is a great honor indeed. I’d like to…

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