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Answers to Readers' Questions on Technical Writing:
Process
The following 5 comments and questions have been sent in. They are listed according to date.
List of first 10 items
- Being precise in what you write
- Writing a technical manual for a website
- Need to mention engineering drawings
- Trying to organize a technical manual
- What software is used for manual?
Being precise in what you write
Question
October 31, 2006
What I once asked was part of a little assignment. I'm taking a Technical Writing class (Online) at a college, so I thought I could use a little help and advice before I might submit the wrong information to my instructor. I thank you for your help!
Steve - USA
12521
Answer
Teachers are often vague in their assignment questions. But also, technical writers may have problems with vague or ambiguous tasks and requirements from their boss or customers.
An important part of technical writing is to be precise in what you write, so that there are no misunderstandings. Also, the material must be concise. A fiction writer that describes things in extreme detail will not make a good technical writer.
Best wishes in your class.
Writing a technical manual for a website
Question
October 28, 2006
What specific challenges would I face when I want to write a technical manual for a certain website?
steve - USA
12260
Answer
Clarity of purpose is the most important challenge. Is this technical manual for a product that will be delivered or displayed on a website? Or is the manual a guide for people using the website? Is it delivered on the website or as hardcopy? These are things that must be defined.
Need to mention engineering drawings
Question
October 11, 2006
I was an aviation technical writer/editor for many years, and offer these comments:
Your document is probably good for writing a technical manual for a very simple item. Your instruction for developing illustrations is a gross over-simplification. Most illustrations are dervied from egineering drawings, not photographs. The large scale sofware programs and CAD systems used by large manufacturers should be mentioned. It might be helpful to some of your readers to know that there are very detailed military specifications which provide excellent guidance for writing a technical manual. A desription (definition) of validation and verification would be helpful.
Joe - USA
12135
Answer
Thanks for the feedback. Although intended to be a brief overview, I certainly did neglect the areas of writing for engineering and technical hardware companies. I added a paragraph on including engineering drawings and those from CAD software. We plan to have a more detailed lesson on some of the issues you addressed.
Trying to organize a technical manual
Question
December 14, 2005
I am writing project management guides for a steel fabrication and erection company. I read your paper with specific interests in mind and found good concise information relating to the broad topic of writing a technical manual. The decision I am faced with now is how to organize the parts of the manual in electronic files. For instance is it best to put all documents into one file or several, with or without sub-folders?
Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you.
Brian - USA
9376
Answer
Writing a manual in Word is usually the easiest to start with, provided you have few illustrations. Its outline capability allows you to easily move things around. But if the manual is large and has many illustrations, it is best to use FrameMaker. Its book format allows you to have each chapter as a separate page. Either program could then be used to create a PDF file with links in the table of contents and index to the appropriate pages.
In other words, your final document for a single manual should be one PDF file.
If you are putting the manual as web pages in HTML, you would typically have many web pages covering single sections.
I guess I'm not certain in what format you want your final product.
In writing, I typically organize things with several files in folders. Descriptive names and even numbering is useful to keep track of things. Then I combine it all into one big file or into a FrameMaker book.
I hope these ideas help.
What software is used for manual?
Question
September 10, 2004
I like to know what is the software used to develop the Technical Manaual.
Kandasamy - Australia
4226
Answer
I depends on what the company decides to use. Many companies use Microsoft Word. Larger companies use Adobe FrameMaker.
Summary
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