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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.
I do most of my work--end-user hardware and software documenation--on a Mac.
For the first 30-50% of a project, I work in More, an old, but serviceable
and flexible dedicated outlining program. It allows me to develop and try
out several alternative document structures, and via cloning anything from
a chapter to a paragraph, keep the alternatives up to date with no extra
work.
For the second stage, I move to Word 5.1, which lets me view my work as an
outline or as a continuous scrolling document. I often split the window to
view the outline in one part, the formatted text in the other (scrolling
the outline scrolls the text). I don't want a page view when I write. I
don't publish from Word.
For the publishing stage, I move to FrameMaker for paper, PageSpinner and
GoLive for HTML and HTML-based online help. I have my own templates for
conversion. I don't like writing in Frame.
Henry Korman
Wordplay Consulting Email: korman -at- wp-consulting -dot- com
No-Hype Info Design--onlne & off Voice: (510) 841-5858 http://www.wp-consulting.com Fax: (510) 848-0159
Coauthor of "How to Communicate Technical Information"
