Maybe you don’t hear your accent, but others do. When you read their documents, does the accent come through?
Monthly Archives: November 2009
“Don’t worry” she said. “No one reads this stuff anyway. Just get it done.” Sounds familiar?
Creating a training plan? Before you do this, you need to step a step back and work out what your colleagues need to learn.
All the screenshots in your Word document are different sizes. What’s the quickest way to get them all the same size? Is there a shortcut? Yes!
What to know how to type faster and get those documents out the door quicker? Most people don’t know what the AutoCorrect feature in Word really does. Most people think it’s there to correct the odd typo and clean up your document AFTER you have written it. That’s true but… I use to correct the document […]
Image by Ivan Walsh via Flickr Most technical writers see outsourcing as a real threat. But, if you look at it from another angle, it’s one huge business opportunity.
The University of Limerick, Ireland offers an excellent online course for those who want to study technical writing at home. This university has a pretty amazing campus, specializes in the Arts and provides a conveyor belt of freshly-minted technical writers to Microsoft, Google and IBM in Ireland. It’s one of the few universities in Europe […]
Seth Godin believes that everything reflects what you stand for—right down to your technical documents. Ever looked at Apple’s tech docs?
Technical Writing attracts women. They’re very good at it and make great team leads. Maybe I’ve been very lucky but I believe women are far better as technical writers than men. Here are five areas where I think they have the edge of the guys. 1. Communication When in entered technical writing, I assumed my […]
Ben says: “The goal of a project is to make the user successful at what he wants to accomplish. Go ahead, read that previous sentence a few times. It’s one that would do well to sink in.” Is this true?
Do you have a degree in technical writing or technical communications? Was it worth the money? If you had a second chance, would you have chosen this or opted for another career path? One of my younger cousins has started her degree in university in Limerick, Ireland. Not the place most of us think of […]
Knowledge is power. Knowing the daily rates of others in your industry helps you negotiate fees and get a better deal. I’ve worked in the US, UK and now here in Asia and have seen a vast difference in the rates that writers work for. Some of my friends in India work for $15 per […]
I’ve used the same technical writing tools for the last 5 years. A few products have come across my desk but nothing that really blown me away. Here’s a run-down of what I use to write my technical documents. No order of preference. Which should I keep? Which should I replace?
Developing a Capacity Plan is vital if you want to understand how much capacity will be required to support your IT systems and, by extension, the infrastructure that supports it. Think about it. If you plan to install a new large-scale solution, for example, IBM WebSphere or SAP, you also need to consider the impact […]
Robohelp or Doc-to-Help? My client has given me permission to use whatever tool I want to do the next batch of tech docs — and they’ll buy the software. No cost to me. Which one should I choose? Robohelp or Doc-to-Help Doc-to-Help was the first help authoring tool (HAT) I used in my technical writing […]