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.
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as ads in a newspaper, magazine, or journal underwrite the
costs of those publications).
In this posting, look for the following ...
* STORY: SnagIt has the solution (NEW)
* TRAINING WORKSHOPS - STC Carolina, Raleigh, NC (NEW)
* ANNOUNCE: Welcome Information Mapping, Inc. as a New
TECHWR-L Annual Sponsor!
* ANNOUNCE: Helplinker makes context-sensitivity easy & controllable
* ANNOUNCE: Building Modular Documentation
and at the end you'll find the concluding administrivia with
information about these ads and how to place your own.
The new technical documentation manager felt a little bit of relief as
Dan, the seasoned technical writer, walked into his cubicle.
"Dan, I need to do over 700 screen captures for a manual for some
complex software."
Dan nodded solemnly.
"Is there capture software that automatically numbers the files when you
save an image? That could save me a considerable amount of time."
"Well," Dan said, "SnagIt, the leading screen capture software, lets you
auto number your images and save them . . . without even opening the
save dialog. Just go to your output properties to set up the file-naming
scheme before you start."
"Ah ha!" the doc manager said, and got right to work.
Dan, glad to be of help, stepped out into the hall. He scrunched up his
face, closed his eyes, and concentrated very hard.
"Dan - what are you doing?" a manager said as she passed.
"Oh, nothing," Dan said breezily. He didn't think she'd believe that he
was trying to tune his SnagIt-radar to see where he could be of help next.
THE CONSULTANT'S TOOLKIT - Saturday, December 7, 2002
An in-depth review of the legal and practical aspects of going
it alone as an independent technical communicator.
Presented by: Chris Juillet, Attorney and Consultant $95/$110
Contact: Cheri, 919-380-3788, techwords -at- pobox -dot- com
SINGLE (sourcing) AND LOVING IT! - Saturday, January 25, 2003
"Write once, use many." Create modular content for single sourcing,
XML, reusable learning objects, and other structured document sets.
Presented by: Jerilynne Sander, of Simply Written, Inc. $125/140
Contact: Jim, 919-557-3887, jreid2 -at- nc -dot- rr -dot- com
STRUCTURED FRAMEMAKER 7 - Saturday, February 8, 2003
Learn how to work with Frame's new structure features in this
hands-on workshop.
Presented by: Kay Ethier, of Bright Path Solutions. $125/140
Contact: Leatta, 919-303-3377, leatta -at- mindspring -dot- com
GREAT VALUE! Includes full day of training, handouts, lunch.
For more details, see www.stc-carolina.org/training/
ANNOUNCE: Welcome Information Mapping, Inc. as a New
TECHWR-L Annual Sponsor!
Join us in welcoming Information Mapping, Inc.
(http://www.infomap.com) as a new TECHWR-L annual
sponsor!
Information Mapping, Inc. is a professional services firm
with over 30 years' experience helping organizations
worldwide leverage knowledge and communications to
improve performance. The Information Mapping method
is a systematic approach for analyzing, organizing, and
presenting business and technical information. Use of
Information Mapping's method can help you
* Start writing more easily
* Reduce writing time
* Get better results from your documentation
* Decrease your document revision time, and
* Increase your productivity.
One technical writing department using the Information
Mapping method survived a merger by convincing their
new company of their value through a usability study.
This study showed how the Information Mapping method
* Added value to the company
* Saved the company money
* Saved readers' time, and
* Reduced the errors encountered by readers.
Contact Information Mapping, Inc. today to find out how
you can learn the Information Mapping method to
develop high-quality structured content and
documentation. Call 800-INFOMAP, send an email to
inquiry -at- infomap -dot- com or visit http://www.infomap.com.
Information Mapping, Inc. welcomes the opportunity to
further support technical writers by sponsoring
TECHWR-L.
Information Mapping, Inc. joins the growing list of
TECHWR-L annual sponsors, which includes:
These sponsors, along with TECHWR-L advertisers and
monthly sponsors, provide key support that enables us
to maintain and develop the variety of TECHWR-L
resources and services.
Welcome and thanks to Information Mapping, Inc. as a
key TECHWR-L sponsor!
For more information about TECHWR-L sponsorships, visit
the About TECHWR-L Sponsorships page at http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/sponsorships.html or
contact Eric at ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-
ANNOUNCE: Helplinker makes context-sensitivity easy & controllable
Dear Technical Writer,
We're a team of contract technical writers who have often been
frustrated with the conventional methods of creating context-
sensitive links to our Help topics. These all involve some
reliance on other people to complete the linking process. Because
we don't have total control, we find ourselves unable to guarantee
the quality of our work.
We were convinced that there had to be a better way and we think
we've found it. The solution is an application called HelpLinker
that we've developed and which allows us to create our (HTML-, Win-
and Web-) Help systems with any authoring tool (RoboHelp, WebWorks,
DocToHelp, Author-It, etc.) we want, and then easily and accurately
link each topic to the correct window in the application. We can
immediately test the link to make sure it works correctly, too.
Both of these tasks can be completed by us, automatically, fast and
with no outside assistance.
Please send any feedback to: helplinker -at- scriptware -dot- nl -dot-
Kind regards,
Edwin van den Dungen
General Manager
Scriptware bv, tel : +31 (0)23 548 48 84
A new book on Single Sourcing has just been released by
William Andrew Publishing, written by Kurt Ament,
author of "Indexing: A Nuts-and-Bolts Guide for
Technical Writers."
This book is for technical writers and editors that want a
flexible framework for developing successful single-source
documentation. Technical publications managers who want to
standardize corporate publications to improve quality and
save time and money. Teachers and students who want to learn
successful single sourcing techniques that are actually used
in corporate environments. It shows technical writers how to
develop standalone information modules, then map these modules to
a variety of audiences and formats.
ISBN 0-8155-1491-3: Author - Ament: Price - $39.00
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