Using Markdown to create a boilerplate document for reports and proposals

Following on from our post Cutting and pasting content into Word documents – Is there a better way?, we’ve been looking at how organisations could use Markdown to create reports and proposals more quickly and consistently. The objective was to: Create something simple for non-technical people to use. Have a collection of re-usable chunks of content that… Read more »

Stack Overflow is moving into documentation (get the popcorn)

Stack Overflow, a collaboratively edited question and answer site for programmers, has announced its plans to add documentation to the site: “Lately we’ve been asking ourselves “what else could we do to improve developers’ lives on the internet?”. Jeff’s original announcement of Stack Overflow said this: There’s far too much great programming information trapped in forums,… Read more »

New date for our advanced technical writing course

We’re moving our public classroom course on Trends in Technical Communication Course – Advanced Technical Writing Techniques from the 18th September to Tuesday 22nd September. There are places available if you’d like to book. We’ve also run this course a number of times during the summer as an “onsite” course for clients, using WebEx and Lync (soon to… Read more »

Tips for writing in the business world

Writing in the business world can be difficult. We have to write Web pages, proposals, emails, policies and procedures and, perhaps, adverts. It can be hard to get going, and create something that’s clear and to the point. Here are some tips to help you get over these difficulties. It’s not your fault Let’s start… Read more »

Why business writing is so difficult

“Everyone is taught to write at school, so surely everyone can write in business?” Although the quotation above would seem to make sense, the reality is that many people find it hard to write in a business context. They struggle to write clearly, and it can take them ages to produce a piece of content. It’s not… Read more »