Archive for August 2010
DeVry Calgary offers Business Admin BA with Technical Communication Specialization
If you live in Canada, here is another option to get a degree with emphasis on Technical Communication: DeVry University of Calgary is offering a Business Administration BA with Technical Communication Specialization. From the school’s web site: “With a growing demand for writers and editors in fields like law, medicine, science, and technology, technical communication…
Read MoreTechnical Book Review — "The Elements of International English Style" by Edmond Weiss
© Ugur Akinci Here is a book that must be read by all technical communicators at all levels of experience and seniority: The Elements Of International English Style: A Guide To Writing Correspondence, Reports, Technical Documents, And Internet Pages For A Global Audience, by Edmond H. Weiss ((M.E. Sharpe, New York, London, 2005, 162 pp.)…
Read MoreHow to Compare Two PDF Documents with Adobe Acrobat
© Ugur Akinci You’ve made changes to a PDF document as requested by your manager (r client) and sent it over for review. But how can the reviewer compare the new document with the old one and decide if all the requested changes have been made? Easy, if you’re using Adobe Acrobat Professional (i.e., “Acrobat…
Read MoreHow to Use MS Word’s Navigation Pane
MS Word comes with a great Navigation Pane that makes navigating around your document a breeze. The longer your document is, the more you’ll appreciate this productivity feature. 1) Launch your MS Word and open a file. 2) Select the VIEW tab. 3) Click the Navigation Pane check-box to display the Navigation Pane on the…
Read MoreHow to Split, View and Edit Two Different Parts of Your Word Document in the Same Window
© Ugur Akinci Imagine you have footnotes at the bottom of a long MS Word page that would not fit into a single screen. How would you work in the first paragraph of that page while viewing the footnotes at the same time? Or, in general: how would you view separate parts of your document…
Read MoreTechnical Book Review – “How to Write a Manual” by Elizabeth Slatkin
© Ugur Akinci How to Write a Manual by Elizabeth Slatkin (Ten Speed Press, 1991,120 pp) is the kind of perfect introductory book that a technical writing manager should buy and distribute to all her entry-level writers. Organized in a logical fashion, the book covers every obvious aspect of the document-writing process. It touches on…
Read MoreDITA – Bright Promise. Bumpy Ride.
© Ugur Akinci DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) is an XML-based structured authoring platform that I’ve been studying for the last couple of years. Sarah O’Keefe and her colleagues at Scriptorium Publishing Services have been a reliable source in my struggle to understand the landscape of this “brave new frontier” looming over our technical communication…
Read More3 Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) Methods
A Standard Operating Procedure, or SOP for short, is documentation that provides step-by-step instructions on how to carry out a task. These are frequently used by all organizations, including small businesses and larger corporations, to ensure quality results with daily tasks. Creating Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) can seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t…
Read MoreHow to Type Special Characters Easily with MS Word 2010 AutoCorrect Formulas
© 2010 Ugur Akinci When you are creating a MS Word 2010 document there is a hard way to type in special characters (like the Copyright icon) and an easy way. The hard way is to (a) use the Insert tag or to (b) type in the special Unicode of the character in question (if…
Read MoreAdobe FrameMaker — Keyboard Shortcuts to Rotate Selected Objects
© 2010 Ugur Akinci Rotating selected objects is no big deal in Adobe FrameMaker. If you know the shortcuts, it’s a breeze. Here is a short hotkey list to help you rotate objects any way you like: Display Rotate Selected Objects dialog box to rotate a selected object by a specific degree, in any direction …
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