Technical Writing Blog

Tell us if the following sounds familiar. You have to create the knowledge base for a product. You read the instructions carefully, do your research, and clarify any knowledge gaps with the development team. But, when it’s time to sit down and write the content, crickets. You can’t type one single word. You have a…

Is there something else you are supposed to be doing right now? Probably some paperwork or starting a new documentation project? But instead you are reading this article about procrastination. Ironic, isn’t it? So you call yourself a procrastinator. Don’t worry, you are not alone. If you are like me or anyone else on this…

Team Orca uses a Continuous Integration environment to trigger builds and installer packaging automatically on a regular basis. ClickHelp allows the build scripts to quickly and effortlessly generate all of the different documentation combinations required for a full product build and release. Team Orca Trifectix, Inc. About Trifectix, Inc. Trifectix, Inc. is a software company…

Technical writing has been around for a few centuries. It is a field that demands a specific set of skills for technical communicators to have. Throughout the centuries, technical writers served as mediators between people, who created technology and people who used technology. But where does technical writing come from? How old is it? Antiquity…

Your employees are one of your biggest assets – that’s a fact. Their ability to work together and communicate efficiently can help streamline your business and increase your bottom line. As such, team building can be an excellent way of bringing everyone together, solve conflicts, and improve the company’s internal synergy. Just consider for a…

So, you’re considering a career in technical writing. Maybe we’re a bit biased, but that’s an excellent choice. You’ll get to work closely with the products and services that may change people’s lives and prepare user documentation for manuals, articles, online help and other supporting documents. It’s a gratifying job, though not without challenges. Here…

Technical writing doesn’t come without its fair share of challenges. For an outsider, creating user documentation may seem like a straightforward job: you receive the project details, analyze the task, and then just start writing. But is it that simple? A technical writer is, essentially, a communicator, and their job is to transfer information from…

To jargon, or not to jargon: that is the question. Although technical writing and the word ‘jargon’ appeared long before Shakespeare, this is not exactly the famous question posed by Hamlet. Today it is a tricky matter which occupies the minds of specialists in technical communication and all sorts of writing. But first of all…

Remember, when you studied in college you had to deal with writing different papers? And, if they were not hand written there were all those requirements about the font size, the quotes, the page breaks…’Yuck! But my paper is very much readable the way it is. Do I really have to do this? What a…

Hyphenation is a linguistic phenomenon which is quite often left out of grammar books. Nevertheless, there are rules that one must follow to use hyphens right. Technical writers, for example, need to make their user documentation look professional. Otherwise, their readers might think that the company itself is untrustworthy. Let’s try to figure out how…