Archive for February 2011
How to Map Out a Process for a Successful Technical Communication Department
© Ugur Akinci How do you run a technical communication department? How do you make sure your team works on a documentation project as it’s supposed to and pulls the oars in the same direction effectively? One way to do this is to draw (mentally or literally) a Process Map. Here is one offered by Chris…
Read MoreHow to Describe a Step-by-Step Process Visually in MS Word 2010
© 2011 Ugur Akinci MS Word 2010 has these beautiful SMART ART drag-and-drop dynamic images that you can use to express many complex ideas like a step-by-step procedure, for example. There are almost infinite ways to do this but here’s a try: (1) Launch your MS Word 2010. Select the Insert tab on your MS…
Read MoreHow to Join Two Open Paths in Adobe Illustrator
The PEN is one of the most powerful tools in Adobe Illustrator: You basically can draw anything you like with it. With PEN you can draw both OPEN and CLOSED paths: More often than not, in technical illustration we use CLOSED paths to represent different drawing objects — buttons, circuit boards, capacitors, door bells, car…
Read MoreHow to Insert a MS Word Table into MS PowerPoint Slide
I love copying and pasting as much as the copy-paster next door 🙂 But sometimes the results are, well… let’s say, “less than acceptable.” Problem For example, when you’re trying to insert a MS Word table into a MS PowerPoint slide, the good’old copy-and-paste trick just won’t work. Here is our Word table: Select the…
Read MoreHow to Display MS Word 2007 Ribbon When It Disappears
© Ugur Akinci It happens… sometimes when you’re in the midst of a project, your MS Word 2007 ribbon just disappears… Not displaying your ribbon has its advantage: it increases your screen real-estate. You’d have more room to display your document. But in terms of functionality and ease of use, it’s a nasty inconvenience. Each…
Read MoreA Great New Career for Nurses – Medical Writing and Illustration
There is now a great career for Nurses — medical writing and illustration. Say you’re a nurse. An RN. A highly-trained and capable health care professional. And again, say you’re a bit sick and tired of the hustle and bustle of a hospital… Yes, the pay is good but there are nerve wrecking responsibilities. You’re…
Read MoreHow to Continue an MS Word Numbered List Across Many Text Blocks
Imagine you have a MS Word numbered list in MS Word that continues across different text blocks. Word’s “natural reflex” is to start each list block from 1 even though you may want the step numbers continue as a single series. For example: (Click to enlarge image) You can try doing the logical thing by…
Read MoreA Source of Potential Component Conflict when Multiple Authors Work in Structured Authoring Environment
Multiple authors writing “components” instead of “pages” is the future of technical communications (if not technical training and e-learning). When it comes to documentation, it really makes sense to “write once and publish multiple times”, as the saying goes. And that’s only possible if we all get used to writing “components” (sometimes also referred to…
Read MoreOn the Idea of “Product Evangelist” in Technical Communications
I love product evangelists for two good reasons: (1) I love software products. I have no idea how we lived back in the 60s and 70s without any software doing all these wonderful things on our desktops, laptops, and mobile devices. (2) I like and admire the product evangelists that I’ve met both in person…
Read MoreHow to Edit Uneditable Text in Photoshop
A Photoshop incident that happened to me recently… Problem Imagine you have a drawing, a “legacy document”, which includes some text that you need to change. Since the drawing’s layers have been “flattened out” quite some time ago and it’s now a pure raster image (like .JPG or .GIF) you cannot obviously use your Text…
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