Technical Writing Blog

A system for commenting on a document so that it is syntactically identifiable from the text is called a markup language. When the document is processed for display, the markup language is not shown and is only used to format the text. The “markup” term is derived from the “marking up” of paper manuscripts, the…

What is IT documentation? In a nutshell, it is a full database of all the information an IT team needs to fulfill its tasks efficiently. It should involve all kinds of key documents: detailed instructions for specific operations, onboarding docs, information about customers, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and many other things. Informative IT documentation must…

Do you often watch How-to videos on YouTube? I am sure you do it from time to time. As for technical communication, video has already become widely spread in user manuals. Statistics show that up to 75% of users do watch video content while almost everyone neglects text. Let’s discuss in this post how to…

Implementing password-protected user guides is something that any company may need. You may ask why someone would need to hide their online user documentation behind a login page? The answer is simple. Documentation can be different. Let’s say we talk about a coffee machine manual – it has to be public. The more users have…

One of the most common things users say about technical documentation is that it describes the information they already know. This fact reduces the value of the content to the minimum. Now, when thousands of software products and cloud services appear every day, some things and features seem to be common and widely spread. There…

Being a technical writer means getting writing tasks from other departments, not only your manager. It’s not like you don’t have enough on your plate already, but since you are really good at creating documentation, helping other teams out seems only natural. So, cross-team communication is an important part of this role. What’s more interesting…

Robots are often described as some kind of intruders in fiction books, movies, and games. They are soulless creatures that were invented by humans with the best intentions in mind, but it rarely ends well. If there’s no apocalypse, then there’s the robots-taking-our-jobs idea. And, quite frankly, it is not too far from the truth….

This is the era of SaaS. The idea of software has changed a lot for the past I’d say ten years. Sure, we still install software on our PC’s and laptops, but we tend to use services much more: Google Mail, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube – we all enjoy them every day. This means that technical…

Cybersecurity was a hot topic for many movies in the 1990s. Hackers were always lurking on the Internet to steal the top secrets. Although it was displayed incorrectly, for the most part, the danger was really there. Before the Internet became our closest companion, following us wherever we go, security felt simpler – just turn…

Giving names to images/sections/help topics is something tech writers do a lot. To find just the right name is important – this is what defines an object. Understandably, certain guidelines exist for the file naming process. When you work on many projects, you will have to come up with a kind of style guide for…