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.
Subject:Re: The Tools Tech Writers Use From:Marguerite Krupp <Marguerite_Krupp -at- BAYNETWORKS -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 31 Jul 1998 16:50:29 -0400
OK, Folks,
The Frame vs. Word arguments lead me to suggest something heretical. If it
important to share documents among people who use different tools, you can
always save the documents in some metalanguage format (SGML or rtf, for
example) and put the documents in question onto a server accessible to that
population. Then people can download the docs and open them in whatever
format they choose.
Really huge, international projects such as the Superconducting
Supercollider have used this expedient. For most things, though, it's
overkill (imho).
The simple answer: talk with one another. Talk to people in other
departments. A lot of our engineers just want stuff in PostScript format so
they can print it from their UNIX workstations. PostScript seems to be the
least common denominator, since Tech Pubs here uses Frame, marketing uses
Word, and Engineering uses emacs or vi. (GAK!)
