TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Back in the days when Word did not rule the land, our company used WordPerfect.
I subscribed to a great magazine which described new uses for WP and had
corresponding how-tos. The magazine included macros that you could copy (one
particularly powerful one let you build what amounted to a database in WP for
tracking a media library or similar), tips for simplifying tasks, and a whole
lot of other gee-whiz creative stuff that you'd never find in a manual.
One of the main tasks of our department is keeping a mammoth policy and
procedure manual (for a bank) up to date. A few years ago we took this task over
from another group, and totally reorganized and rewrote the manual. In the
process, we found that two things were missing from many of the procedures: why
you would follow a particular procedure, in other words, what you were trying to
accomplish, and what the desired or expected result was. How do I know when I'm
done, and how do I know that I've done this correctly?
Robin asks some good questions, and makes me think about how we write our
manuals, what we are trying to accomplish, and whether we could change our
perspective to deliver a better product to our users.
Food for thought.
Jo
Maggie Secara wrote:
> I agree. I'd like to know what this puppy can do, not just how to do
> something I've thought of and can't figure out. What is it FOR? When would
> I use this feature? I used to learn a lot about Word, for example, just by
> picking up the manual and paging through that. Back when there *was* a
> manual. Now that everything is reduced to generalized on-line help, if you
> don't already know, it's hard to find out.
>
> Maggie Secara
> NILS Publishing Company
> (818) 734-3570
*** Deva(tm) Tools for Dreamweaver and Deva(tm) Search ***
Build Contents, Indexes, and Search for Web Sites and Help Systems
Available now at http://www.devahelp.com or info -at- devahelp -dot- com
TECH*COMM 2001 Conference, July 15-18 in Washington, DC
The Help Technology Conference, August 21-24 in Boston, MA
Details and online registration at http://www.SolutionsEvents.com
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
