Your policy and procedures manual as software

Jared Spool tweeted this morning: PLEASE, PLEASE! Tell me that Apple is going to release Hypercard for the iPad! — Jared Spool (@jmspool) September 9, 2014 HyperCard was a hypertext program that came with Apple Macintosh in the 1980s. It allowed you to create “stacks” of online cards, which organsiations used to create some of the first… Read more »

SharePoint for documentation projects

Most of the Technical Authors I have met don’t have a good thing to say about Microsoft SharePoint. In many ways, it represents how not to publish content online. It is seen as encouraging people to move print-optimised documents (Blobs) around, rather than units of content (Chunks), and users are typically left to rely on search… Read more »

Why you probably shouldn’t use Word to create your policy documents

Imagine you are an IT manager for an organisation that has been implementing new IT systems. You have now reached the point where you need to create and document the new IT policies and procedures. The organisation already has some general policies for IT in its staff handbook, but you need to provide more detailed… Read more »

RoboHelp 11 review (finally)

Adobe released its latest version of RoboHelp Version 11 (and Technical Communications Suite 5), a while back and asked if we could write a review. There have been a number of excellent reviews, so we’ve been wondering what extra we can say. We’ve decided to address some of the questions we’re often asked by organisations when they’re… Read more »

Changing times in technical communication 2 – Workflow

We’ve been on the road in recent days and weeks, visiting different documentation teams, and we’ve found there are distinct signs of change. In this post, I’ll look at how we’re starting to see the workflow for creating User Assistance beginning to change. We found many documentation teams overstretched and starting to be asked how… Read more »