Technical Documents
Technical Documents
(OP)
Hello,
Is there other software besides Word that can be used to make manuals or other technical documents? Not sure if this is the best place to ask.
Is there other software besides Word that can be used to make manuals or other technical documents? Not sure if this is the best place to ask.
RE: Technical Documents
https://www.bing.com/search?q=technical+document+s...
Walt
RE: Technical Documents
RE: Technical Documents
RE: Technical Documents
Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?
-Dik
RE: Technical Documents
RE: Technical Documents
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: Technical Documents
Technical writers may advocate publishing software like Framemaker. I claim that your manual preparation software must be operable by people who know how your machines work.
LibreOffice and Microsoft Word work way better if everyone learns how to use the Styles and Formatting.
Office Suite Abuse
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JHG
RE: Technical Documents
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: Technical Documents
Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?
-Dik
RE: Technical Documents
I have fond memories of PordWerfect too, but Microsoft Word and the later Open/Libre Office are very different, and need to be used differently.
I am using LaTeX here at home. It outputs to PDF efficiently and reliably, and generally to HTML. It won't export graphics to RTF. I don't expect the OP's co-workers to be eager to learn it.
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JHG
RE: Technical Documents
Huub
- You never get what you expect, you only get what you inspect.
RE: Technical Documents
"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."
Ben Loosli
RE: Technical Documents
RE: Technical Documents
RE: Technical Documents
While there is overlap in capabilities the choice is driven by the desired end product.
Given the vagueness of the original question.....
RE: Technical Documents
RE: Technical Documents
I am using Octave to do calculations, and I am printing out the results as LaTeX code. It's messy, but it becomes easy to change early parameters in a long set of calculations, and then redo everything. One does have to review one's conclusions.
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JHG
RE: Technical Documents
1) People use Word and use it poorly because they don't know any better. If your documents are 10 pages or longer, I would consider another system.
2) My company had used publishing software (Pagemaker), which has strength in organized, predictable formatting. The downside is editing is more tedious.
3) If your manuals have overlap in content (e.g. a common safety section or parts-ordering page, storage requirements, regulatory statement, etc) you might consider a structured authoring software. Structured authoring means you can build a document dynamically from a number of separately-saved chunks. This way if you update content in a chunk, all of the documents that use it will update upon re-opening. I dabbled in structured authoring software but not well enough to make a specific suggestion.
4) Hire or consult a technical writer to get your stuff converted and organized. Many companies dump documentation as a low priority in both resources and process control. This has a negative effect on every aspect of the product since customers won't use it as effectively and of course, blame the manufacturer when things don't go well.
It's been mentioned that operating manuals belong to this or that group within the company. They are all wrong - it requires a truly cross-functional team. Marketing needs to control depiction of the product and brand, Engineering needs to write the guts and make sure it is technically accurate, a technical writer needs to pare it down to simple, effective language, legal needs to address regulatory, contractual, and liability issues, etc.