Writing, editing, designing, and publishing skills form the foundation of technical writing, but these skills are just get you started. You need to know how to use help authoring tool, graphic package, publishing tools and web designing packages. Recently WritersUA conducted a survey on tools used in technical writing. The survey concluded that some of the most popular tech-writing tools are Adobe Acrobat, Madcap Flare, Adobe Framemaker, Adobe Captivate, Dreamweaver, Snag IT, Microsoft Visio, and Camtasia Studio.
Though tech writers write various kind of documents, design website and deliver various multimedia training tutorials – publishing program are the basic tool of tech writing industry. Some of the most popular publishing tools are Adobe FrameMaker, Microsoft Word, InterLeaf, and Adobe PageMaker.
Tech Writers are not expected to be experts in graphic artists, but they are expected to have basic graphics knowledge. If you plan to do any kind of documentation, you need to know how to capture screen and edit them manually with the help of tools. Some of the best screen capturing and editing tools are Adobe Illustrator, PhotoShop, Microsoft Paint, Snag IT, and Corel Draw.
Tech writers need to learn at least one Help authoring tool. To create one self-contained Help doc, you need to know how to compile complex document into a usable format. Just ensure that document is completely functional within the limited scope of your project. There are many Help packages available, you can download any help authoring tool and get started. Some of the most used help tools are Adobe RoboHelp, ForeHelp, HelpnDoc, and DocToHelp.
Help authoring tools
Technical writers in their work use a lot of different software. These can be a Help Authoring Tools or HAT, content management systems and version control systems. To Hat belong Adobe RoboHelp, Author-it, Doc-To-Help, FAR HTML, HelpIQ, Help & Manual, Help Generator, HelpNDoc, HelpServer, HelpStudio, MadCap Flare, Sandcastle and many other.
It has several basic and auxiliary functions. To the first group belong file input and help output. File input either allows importing a text produced by any kind of program or gives the technical writer an opportunity to create a text using an editor within the tool. Depending on what HAT tool you use the format of the imported file can be different. For example, ASCII, HTML, OpenOffice Writer , Microsoft Word, Microsoft WinHelp, Microsoft Compressed HTML Help etc. HAT also can put the files out as a compiled Help file and non-compiled file formats. The formats that are normally used for outputting are: WinHelp(*.HLP), Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (*.CHM), Adobe PDF, XML,HTML, JavaHelp and so on.
As it has been stated HAT tools have also some auxiliary functions for technical authoring. The functions include: automatic or assisted Index generation, automatic table of contents, spelling checker, image editing, image hotspot editing, import and export of text in XML files, for exchange with computer-assisted translation programs.
Black and White Tech Writing Solutions is an end-to-end documentation company founded with an aim to assist organizations with effective communication in all their marketing and technical endeavours.
For more information contact 080 – 49540466, 9738251089 & 9901722990.
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