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e-Doc
Technical Writing Services
Take advantage of the pool of advanced engineering and linguistic skills available in Israel to outsource your technical writing project economically.
e-Doc is a Jerusalem-based technical writing outsourcer for companies
anywhere seeking cost-effective offshore technical writing services that
meet the highest US and European standards.
Reasons for oursourcing your technical writing project with e-Doc:
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Technical writing is ideal for outsourcing. Projects are easy to isolate, describe, and control.
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Offshore outsourcing of technical writing is economical.
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Outsourcing brings highly specialized expertise to your technical writing project.
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Outsourcing technical writing projects ensures high accountability.
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You pay only for the technical writing services you get.
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Quality control is built into every outsourced technical writing project.
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When you outsource your technical writing project you can choose the best source for every element or stage in the production cycle.
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In an imperfect world, the easiest and most cost-effective way to manage a documentation project is to outsource it.
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Whether your project involves technical manuals or online help, proposals, marketing collateral, multimedia, web presence, or translation and localization, you can outsource it to e-Doc with confidence.
Contact e-Doc now and tell us about your technical writing project. Let us show you the benefits of using the technical writing services of e-Doc.
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<H1>Writing content for the Internet</H1>
It is clear today that for many companies the Internet site carries the lion's share of the marketing burden. This is true epspecially of small and medium size companies that cannot afford to deploy a massive marketing campaign in the media. Therefore, all of their marketing messages must be incorporated in the content that appears on their Internet site. This appears to be an easy proposition on one hand, because writing Internet content and posting it on the company site is relatively easy. But bringing readers to the site is a great deal more difficult. And once the visitors reach the site, making them linger and actually read the content, let alone perform the subsequent actions we wish them to perform, is even more difficult, and it requires very careful planning of the Internet content, flawless writing, editing, and proofing, attractive design, and a host of other qualities that are not easy to come by and not always obvious how to achieve.
<h2>Internet content versus offline marketing collateral</h2>
What is the major difference between traditional marketing writing and writing for the Internet? The difference is vast, indeed. First and foremost, the reader who accesses the marketing collateral over the Internet wields a powerful weapon in the form of a mouse. He can use that weapon to fly away from your site in an instant, perhaps directly to one of your competitors, or alternatively, if he approves of your content, to click BUY NOW or any other link you make available for him in order to guide his actions while visiting your site. The reader of traditional, offline marketing materials (brochures, data sheets, catalogs) has no such options.
This reality makes the life of the Internet content writer much more difficult. Marketing writers are used to having to cope with short reader attention span, but there is a qualitative difference in just how quickly the marketing writer must grab the reader's attention in print and on the Web. Even if the reader turns away from a piece of print advertising, the copy continues to exist on the page, and the reader's eyes may fall upon it again at some later point in time. But once a visitor clicks away from a site, that site and its content, for that reader, ceases to exist, and very likely forever.
<h2>Special challenges of Internet content writing</h2>
All this raises special challenges before the Internet content writer. Today, when every site owner can easily obtain statistics about how many seconds each visitor lingered on the content of every page, the Internet content writer can be held directly accountable for the effectiveness of every word that appears on the site. Naturally, verbal content is not the only one that appears on a site. There are all types of other content, such graphics, animations, the design itself (which can also be considered to be content) and other elements. But all of them are subordinate to words, to the verbal content of the site, and under the responsibility of the content writer, because ultimately all images and sounds are translated in the minds of the visitors into concepts that have verbal representations. Our cannot escape the tyranny of words, and the creators of content for websites ignore this reality at their peril.
The first challenge of the Web content writer is to cope with the new Internet culture and the associated changes in reading and data acquisition practices. A generation of readers raised on a steady diet of television and video games since childhood, with an attention span optimized for short sound bites and snappy images, has come into its own in the age of the Internet, where it can finally control the content it consumes with one mouse click.
<h2>Case study: Content for site promoting software utility</h2>
Imagine, for the sake of this exercise, that you are writing content for a site that promotes a timesheet utility. Producing the content raises an infinite number of challenges, including many optimization (SEO) issues, which we ignore for now, and assume that the lucky surfer has actually landed on your site. Your challenge now is to make him buy the product, or at least to download the demo. Let's see what you are up against and what you've got to work with.
Fairly simple statistical tools can tell you how long visitors to your site linger on each page. Based on this information you can now decide whether your objective is to have visitors spend more time on the site or to act more quickly, doing what you would like them to do. If the time they spend on the site is extremely short (what is referred to as a bounce), the content of your site is clearly lacking some essential feature needed to generate interest among visitors. In this case you must focus on generating some attention-seeking content, not only verbal but also verbal, because images, however appealing, are taken in at a glance and will not extend the visitor's time on the page if they are not accompanied by substantive content worth perusing. In our case, you may create an attractive graphic with an animated and humorous attendance clock, but unless you immediately rivet the visitor with a unique feature of your timesheet software, his visit will be fruitless even if he stays to see the end of the animation. (Note, incidentally, that if you actively promote the site, every exposure of your page, even if it bounces, costs you money, so that every visitor who reaches the site and then leaves without taking action is not merely a missed opportunity but also an expense to the company. This makes the content of your site and the ability to retain visitors even more crucial.)
At this point you must devise an overall strategy for your page (this applies typically to your home page or landing page, the one that is optimized for search engines, not to the entire site). Your strategy should include two to three objectives of visitor behavior and a clear path for the fine tuning the content of the site in order to accomplish these objectives.
<b>First objective: Buy Now!</b> The first objective of the content you create for the site is to get the visitor to click the Buy Now button. All the content that appears on the site must be optimized and directed toward achieving this goal. The text, the layout, the color, size, shape, and location of the Buy Now button, the surrounding elements – all must serve to make the visitor click the button you want him to click.
It may be a while before you get the content right. If your site generates significant traffic – sufficient traffic to produce meaningful statistics – you can experiment with the content and make controlled changes, one element at a time, and observe the effect of the change on the conversion rate (the conversion rate represents the number of visitors who clicked the button you want them to click from among those who reached your site).
<H1>Technical writing services to the high-tech industry.</H1>
The company's principal business is the writing of technical documents. We offer a range of technical writing services. Effective technical documentation requires, in addition to technical writing skills, thorough familiarity with technical writing tools, knowledge of technical writing standards, and the ample availability of technical writing resources. e-Doc extend its attention to all these aspects of the business.
<H1>Technical writing services</H1>
e-Doc offers the following technical documentation and technical writing services:
<H2>Writing services proper</H2>
Our technical writing services include: writing of individual documents, which includes outlining, writing, editing, illustration, proofreading, graphic design, formatting, printing, distribution, and testing of the document. You can choose all or part of this menu. We cover the range of hardware and software documents, including user guides, reference manuals, tutorials, installation guides, getting started guides, service manuals, maintenance manuals, troubleshooting guides, application notes, clinical reports, design documents, internal documentation, pre-sale and post-sale literature, marketing collateral, training guides, online help systems of every flavor (HTML help, Java help, Flash help, Windows help), electronic books, proposals, RFPs/RFQs, grant proposals, research proposals, business plans, annual reports, and more.
To learn more about our technical writing services, write us about your technical writing needs at <a href="mailto:edoc@docs.co.il">edoc@docs.co.il</a>.
<H2>Outsourcing and design of technical documentation sets</H2>
We design a complete documentation set for your new product or review your existing documentation and suggest how to streamline and improve it for the next release. We define the function and scope of each component of the documentation set (manuals, training guides, on-line documentation, corporate style guide), and prepare outlines for all the manuals. We can serve as an extension of your company's documentation department or as a substitute for it.
<H2>Outsourcing of long-term maintenance of technical documentation sets</H2>
Updating your existing documents doesn't have to be a chaotic experience. We devise a long-term maintenance strategy and schedule, update the documents with each new revision of the product, and distribute the updates to your customers.
Bring your product to a foreign market quickly and efficiently with our one-stop localization service. We prepare complete foreign language editions -- online documents, screens, dialogs, menus, icons, error messages -- with minimum reliance on your company's resources. If you need to localize your product for more than one country, we prepare all languages in parallel.
<H2>Business writing</H2>
Our staff of experienced writers, editors, and translators provides expert text and document preparation services to the business community. We cover the range of business documents including business plans, quarterly and annual reports, newsletters, summaries, presentations, proposals, white papers, position papers, business reports, technical bulletins, company/employee manuals, in-house publications, RFPs/RFQs, product brochures, press releases, sales and product literature, catalogues, flyers, posters, Web sites, professional journal and magazine articles, and scientific papers.
<H2>Training programs</H2>
Who trains your clients? Who trains your service, support, and sales staff? And who trains your trainers? We help you design a complete training program for your organization. We write the training manuals and generate all course materials (presentations, workbooks, student and instructor guides, tests, and labs). We develop and produce training videos, self-paced learning guides, and interactive materials.
<H2>Technical writing project management</H2>
Use your existing staff, or a combination of in-house talent and contractors in the most effective way to complete a project on schedule and within budget. We work out a plan of action for your project; you can implement it yourself or let us do it.
<H2>Translation and localization services</H2>
<H1>Technical writing outsourcing</H1>
e-Doc is a Jerusalem-based technical writing outsourcer for companies anywhere seeking a cost-effective offshore technical writing solution that meets the highest US and European standards. We offer a comprehensive menu of technical writing services.
Take advantage of the pool of advanced engineering and linguistic skills available in Israel to outsource your technical writing project economically.
<H2>Reasons for outsourcing your technical writing project with e-Doc</H2>
Technical writing is ideal for offshore outsourcing. Projects are easy to isolate, describe, and control. Offshore outsourcing of technical writing is economical. Outsourcing of technical writing brings highly specialized expertise to your project. Outsourcing of technical writing projects ensures high accountability. You pay only for what you get when you outsource your documentation project. Quality control is built into every outsourced technical writing project. When you outsource your technical writing project you can choose the best source for every element. In an imperfect world, the easiest way to manage a documentation project is to outsource it.
Contact e-Doc now and tell us about your technical writing project. Let us tell you about the benefits of outsourcing with e-Doc. Whether your project involves technical manuals or online help, proposals, marketing collateral, multimedia, web presence, or translation and localization, e-Doc can help.
<h1>XML: Taking the Long View</h1>
XML is the standard that provides the ideal solution for protecting your company s investment in the documentation and at the same time injecting the necessary structure and methodology into the documentation sets across all platforms and mediums of delivery.The most important benefit your company stands to gain from converting the documentation to XML is the following:
XML is a device- and application-independent standard, which when applied to a document, fully describes that document's structure. XML-compliant documents are machine-convertible to any publishing system, present or future, that supports XML. (Most high-end publishing systems already do, and all will in the future.) Converting your company s documentation to XML takes most of the risk out of the decisions regarding the documentation development and delivery tools since the company is not locked into any given product or technology. Anytime in the future, XML-tagged documents can be automatically converted for delivery on any publishing system that may better suit the company's needs.
<h2>Other important benefits of XML</h2>
* Ensures consistency not only of form but also of structure across all the documentation sets, defining standards for the documents' look as well as organization.
* Document maintenance is greatly simplified and made more accurate.
* Reusability of XML-coded text reduces the size of the manuals, increases their accuracy and consistency, and simplifies their maintenance.
* If internal development documents are also made XML-compliant, they will be generated more efficiently. Portions of these documents can then be easily reused in external documents.
* Complies with increasing demand for XML-tagged electronic documentation.
To convert the documentation to XML, it is necessary to perform a content analysis of the manuals, develop a set of custom DTDs (Document Type Definitions), and insert the appropriate codes into the documents. Although some of this work may be automated, much of it must be performed manually.
XML requires a significant initial investment in the documentation. It is a one-time investment, however, which continues to generate substantial returns throughout the rest of the life span of the documentation.
<h2>How electronic documents are assembled</h2>
The chart below, read from the bottom up, shows a simplified conceptual view of how paper and electronic documents are assembled from a library of text and graphic objects — indeed, a hierarchy of libraries containing objects applicable to individual documents, to individual documentation sets, or to all documentation sets enterprise-wide. Some objects, such as instructions for editing an AUTOEXEC.BAT file or wiring an RS-232 connector, will appear only in the corporate-wide library. Others, like the description of a passive star configuration, may appear in the I/A documentation set library or in a library dedicated to the fiber optic LAN documentation.
<H1>The e-Doc outsourcing program for start-up and mature companies</H1>
We make the outsourcing of technical writing services safe and predictable.
Companies that concentrate on their core business leave documentation to specialists. e-Doc offers a documentation outsourcing program for start-up companies that haven't yet established a writing group and for mature companies that want to increase the competitiveness of their operation. The outsourcing program draws on the full breadth of e-Doc resources and ties together all our services:
<H2>Documentation maintenance strategy</H2>
As the life span of technical documents increases with their portability, a growing proportion of the documentation effort goes into maintenance. We design a coherent, long-term maintenance strategy for your technical documentation.
<H2>Documentation audit</H2>
Based on an analysis of your documentation needs and current operation, we design a custom program that restructures your documentation to increase its maintainability and eliminate inefficiencies.
<H2>Writing</H2>
We handle all phases of the documentation development cycle, including writing, editing, proofreading, design, illustration, testing, production, and distribution. All these services are ideal candidates for outsourcing.
<H2>Translations</H2>
If you distribute your product in foreign markets, we translate your manuals and all product-related materials (screens, menus, error messages) to localize your product.
e-Doc can bundle all these technical writing services in one outsourcing package. We have the expertise to manage the entire documentation development and production cycle for you.
<H2>Online documentation</H2>
We prepare electronic manuals and link them with your application. We can publish your online technical documents on CD-ROM or on the Web.
<H2>Quality management program</H2>
To put your documentation on a path for continuous improvement, we design and implement a quality management program for all your technical writing projects.
<H1>Benefits of Outsourcing</H1>
- Improves the quality of the documentation, which in turn boosts the quality of the product it accompanies
- Reduces cost
- Cuts time-to-market
- Protects the company's investment in the documentation
- Leverages the latest authoring and publishing technology to increase the portability and maintainability of the technical manuals
<H1>e-Doc's outsourcing muscle</H1>
Our technical writing services cover every type of document in all content areas.
Our staff consists of senior engineers and technical writers. We have the technical ability and engineering knowledge necessary to understand your equipment.
We have experience restructuring large documentation departments and putting together substantial outsourcing programs.
We invest in technology. The technological issues raised by large documentation projects do not have off-the-shelf solutions. We research and develop the technologies that provide the best solution for each documentation project.
Our outsourcing program is so structured that you never lose control over the development process and do not become dependent on any single vendor.
<H1>Documentation maintenance</H1>
Developing a maintenance policy is an integral part of our standard technical writing services.
Most documents must be updated at least once. As the life span of technical documents increases, many documents are updated repeatedly and periodically. To maintain a complex documentation set, a coherent, long-term strategy is needed. The strategy must take into account archiving needs, ongoing testing of the documentation, possible translations and conversion to other media, and the simultaneous maintenance of several versions of the same document.
e-Doc provides an "Update and Upgrade" package designed to bring your existing documentation up to date, improve its content and form, and prepare it for future updates with each new revision of the product. Documentation maintenance is another project ideal for outsourcing.
<H2>Update and upgrade package</H2>
As no two documentation projects are the same, all our technical writing services are custom-tailored to specific client needs.
Documents created by e-Doc are designed with a view toward long-term maintenance. We propose a long-term maintenance strategy for each new document we produce. All the projects associated with the Update and upgrade package are well suited for outsourcing.
We provide the following services as part of the Update and upgrade package:
- Evaluate the existing documentation: perform a usability (readability) test; custom-design a QA testing form for the documentation; custom-design a user evaluation form to assess the usefulness of the documentation; perform the QA testing; collect and summarize the data.
- Based on analysis of the results of the evaluation, restructure the documents, prepare new outlines, and prepare an upgrade plan.
- Write all new material, correct inaccuracies, and bring deficient parts of the documents up to the new standards.
- Update illustrations and add new ones as needed.
- Perform a technical review cycle.
- Edit the new document.
- Redesign and implement new formats.
- Reindex.
- Update the online documentation.
- Devise long-term strategy and prepare a schedule for future documentation updates.
- Prepare evaluation forms for on-going testing of the documentation, and devise a method for collecting the information and incorporating it in future updates.
<H2>Documentation maintenance philosophy</H2>
We apply the same standards of quality to technical writing that you apply to product development.
Our technical writing and documentation outsourcing services are based on our long-term documentation maintenance philosophy. Up to eighty percent of the documentation effort can go into maintenance. Typical documentation maintenance activities are:
- Updating technical documents when a product is revised
- Correcting errors in existing technical documents
- Re-issuing existing technical documents in a new format or medium
The technical writing services needed to complete documentation maintenance tasks that are superficially similar in scope can vary enormously, depending on how the existing documentation is structured. It is our objective to upgrade the documentation while staying within the proposed budget and schedule. To accomplish this we take the following measures designed to streamline the maintenance process:
- Review the structure of each documentation set
- Establish documentation maintenance standards
- Set up quality management procedures for documentation
<H3>Maintenance standards for technical documentation</H3>
The objective of this step is to streamline the technical writing process and increase the efficiency of our technical writing services to clients.
A coherent strategy for long-term documentation maintenance delineates the responsibilities of all participants in the maintenance process: engineers, writers, editors, and production staff. In devising this strategy, we incorporate existing procedures, wherever they are available and applicable, and adapt, modify, and expand them as necessary. A strategy of this type is essential for effective documentation outsourcing.
Our maintenance strategy is anchored in an on-line database of Requests for Document Modification (RDMs) or an equivalent tool, if such a tool already exists within the organization. If no such tool exists, we propose a detailed RDM tracking system and a long-term documentation maintenance strategy.
<H3>Review of structure</H3>
Structure is as important for technical documents as it is for classical symphonies.
An important part of our technical writing services is the structuring (or restructuring) of your documentation set.
The stronger the structure of the existing documentation, the easier it is to maintain. Easy maintenance is one of the cheif aims of any documentation outsourcing project. If documents are easily maintainable, we can render more effective technical writing services. The more stringently the principles of reusability and non-duplication of text and graphics are enforced, the more economical the maintenance process is.
Easy maintainability is an important pay-off of our highly structured approach to documentation. We use rigorous molds to shape the material from which the manuals are built. Review of the documentation set usually reveals many areas of commonality across documents. Review of the documentation structure includes the following steps:
- Audit the documentation set and each individual document to reveal the areas of overlap between documents and to formulate a product-wide (and, wherever possible, corporate-wide) structure for the manuals. Often the documentation set includes too many separate manuals. We can usually merge these into fewer, more coherent, and more easily searchable sets.
- Extract the common elements of various documents and build libraries of text and graphic objects. Incorporate these elements into the various documents, whenever possible by reference.
Identify the commonalities among the manuals. Often these extend not only across the various technologies used but also across applications. When we map documents on a matrix of technology (or generation) by application, we often find that some of the material is always the same, some changes with the technology, and some with the application. Treated in this way, many of the manuals are more or less extensive variations of the same manual.
- Consider XML content modeling to preserve the company's investment in the documentation. This process helps us identify the elements of each document, formalize document structure, and set up the molds we need in order to shape the documents in each set.
<H2>Quality management procedures</H2>
To guarantee the consistent quality of the documentation and ensure the application of the established documentation maintenance standards, we set up quality management procedures for documentation based on TQM principles. Our quality management program has two main goals:
1. To meet and exceed the customer's expectations.
2. To establish written standards and operating procedures.
A quality management program is central to the successful outsourcing of your documentation project.
<H3>Establishing written standards and operating procedures for our technical writing wservices</H3>
Written operating procedures are designed to reduce variability in the documentation process, to ensure repeatability, and to check the quality of the documentation creation process every step of the way. We create written operating procedures for the following activities:
- Structuring and outlining a technical document. Approving the final outline.
- Transferring knowledge to the writers (particularly important for documentation outsourcing projects).
- Writing, including:
= File-naming conventions and directory structures. Lists of prefixes, suffixes, and other identifiers used in creating library objects and assembling them into documents.
= Corporate style guide.
- Technical reviews.
- Editing/proofreading, including:
= Corporate style guide.
- Production and formatting documents for on-line viewing, including:
= Corporate design and style guide.
= Tools and methodologies.
= Technical procedures.
- Approval of the document for release.
- Approval of changes to the document and of document re-issue.
- Approval of document withdrawal and procedure for removal of obsolete documents from all points of issue and use.
- Document revision control, including:
= Master list used to identify the current revision of documents and to preclude the use of non-applicable documents.
= Master list of all library objects.
= Master list of all document files and the list of objects they include.
= Procedure used to uniquely identify and trace library objects from inception to inclusion in finished documents; methods, tools, and techniques used.
= Determination of the stage in the life of a document when it is brought under version control.
= Method for recording changes to each library object and document.
= Procedure used to report on the status of each document and of its constituent objects.
- Procedures for control of electronic media, including detailed descriptions of the following functions:
= Document inventory codes, if applicable.
= File transfer, conversion, and locking rules. The project leader, all writers, editors, and publication specialists know at all times who does and who does not have access to given files.
= Detailed backup schedule and procedure. Other media protection methods. Location of on-site and off-site backups. Individuals responsible for each media protection function.
= Detailed archiving rules and procedures.
All the procedures and controls outlined above are essential for effective management and tracking of outsourced documentation projects.
<H3>Meeting and exceeding customer expectations<H3>
Our technical writing services must meet the expectations of two customers:
1. The end user of the documentation expects high-quality, accurate, complete, easily accessible, and clearly written manuals.
2. The customer expects these manuals to be price-competitive, completed on schedule and without disruption to the product development process, and presented in a format that is easy to update in the future.
We use the following methods to meet these expectations:
- Establish instruments that measure our output (the product) and the process by which we produce it.
- Define a documentation production process that has built-in continuous improvement mechanisms.
- Use a technology that leaves the door open to innovation, future changes in technology, and the adoption of new methods.
<H1>Our documentation development and restructuring program</H1>
We develop a comprehensive plan, using a group of senior engineers and writers and the latest and best-suited technology, to turn our clients' documentation into a competitive agent. In the course of implementing our program, documentation will not only cost less but will also visibly improve the clients' products and contribute to their acceptance by customers.
The main goal of the documentation outsourcing effort is to produce a high quality product at a reasonable cost. But this is not its only goal. It is almost as important to achieve that goal through a painless process that does not disrupt the company's development activity. Our proposal is designed to integrate document development with product development in a smooth and non-disruptive way.
To this end, we devise a conversion program that ensures a seamless transition from the current documentation development process to the one we propose.
The substance of our documentation outsourcing plan can be described from two aspects: The Product and The Process. The first refers to the kind of documentation we propose to create and the technology used to deliver it. The second refers to our plan for working with the customer to implement the new strategy and produce that documentation.
<H2>The Product</H2>
The first area of emphasis in a documentation outsourcing plan is the product of the technical writing service. If the structure, writing quality, and appearance of the documentation are not up to par, our experience shows that the documentation places the company at a competitive disadvantage.
In general, the following steps are necessary to raise the quality of the documentation:
- Improve the organization of individual manuals and standardize the structure of documentation sets.
- Improve the quality of writing.
- Edit each document against a corporate stylesheet to ensure consistency across documentation sets.
- Redesign the manuals if necessary to improve their appearance and readability.
- Increase the accessibility of the material in the manuals by adding indexes, glassaries, graphic and other navigation tools for on-line documents.
- Provide appropriate copyright, trademark, and other legal notices, if missing.
- Establish a QA program for documentation so that manuals can be tested with the products they accompany.
A documentation audit reveals which of the above are necessary to address the specific issues of individual customers.
<h1>Forms of documentation delivery</h1>
Our technical writing services extend to documentation delivery. Our technical writing team adivses clients to make their documentation available on-line in the form of interactive electronic technical manuals (IETMs) whenever electronic delivery of the documentation is appropriate for the product and the environment in which it is used. IETMs are not merely paper manuals displayed on the screen, but fully searchable, hypertext-linked databases of text and graphic objects assembled to permit efficient, non-linear viewing of the manual. The benefits of on-line documentation to the customer are:
* Easy navigation of the text through hypertext links, table of contents, and bookmarks.
* Full-text retrieval, allowing Boolean, phonetic, and wild-card searches and the use of search templates.
* Convenient browsing with the aid of dynamic, collapsible outlines.
* Users can annotate the documents using electronic "sticky notes." Once posted, these notes become available to all the users of the documentation on a given system or network.
* Documents are always up-to-date. An updated version of the documentation is distributed automatically with each product shipped.
<h2>Additional benefits of on-line documentation</h2>
Our technical writing outsourcing experts point to the following additional benefits of on-line documentation:
* A superior product and higher customer satisfaction.
* More efficient use of the documentation by the customer, and therefore reduced customer reliance on technical support.
* Substantial savings. Because most of the documentation is distributed electronically, along with the product, the cost of buying, printing, storing, and shipping large amounts of paper is greatly reduced.
* Easier maintenance of documentation and reduced time-to-market of client products. Documents can be searched electronically to determine which sections in which manuals are affected by any given change in the product. Electronic sticky notes can be used to store and review requests for manual revisions.
Use e-Doc's technical writing services for all you documentation needs.
<h1>Technology and technical writing services</h1>
The technology used to develop, publish, and distribute the technical manuals must accommodate several important needs:
- Eliminate duplication of source materials and support reusable text and graphic objects. There is no reason to describe or illustrate anything more than once. Reusing text and graphic objects not only saves time but also ensures consistency, improves document quality, and greatly simplifies documentation maintenance.
- Allow the document development cycle (writing, editing, design, and illustration) to be separated from the publication process. In this way, the same text and graphic objects can serve as sources for both paper and electronic manuals.
- Permit complete freedom of choice in selecting the best delivery and distribution methods for each publication. The electronic versions of manuals should be available on whatever platform is appropriate for each individual product.
<h1>Inexpensive technical writing solutions</h1>
An inexpensive and efficient solution can be built around a family of products that cover the entire spectrum of technical writing services and documentation development and delivery: writing and editing, illustration, page composition, paper delivery, and on-line viewing.
The product must run on all platforms of interest, including Windows, Macintosh computers, and UNIX-based workstations. A technical document created on a PC should be viewable with on any other platform.
The advantages of adopting such an environment for technical writing are:
- Technical documentation can be developed on PCs, which is the least expensive environment to work in. Existing text and graphic sources can be easily incorporated into the new technical documents, which simplifies the migration process.
- The same source files can be used for both paper and electronic technical documents.
- Electronic documents can be delivered on any platform.
<h1>Protecting the Company's Investment in the Documentation</h1>
How far into the future will current products take the company's documentation?
Electronic publishing is in a constant state of flux. New technologies are crowding out each other as vendors try to impose their products as de facto standards. Full-text indexers and retrieval systems are turning documents into databases of intelligently searchable objects. Concurrently, large players are promoting multimedia solutions for interactive reference and training material.
In planning the company's long-term documentation strategy, we must make the company's manuals comply not only with today's technology or even tomorrow's, but also with developments beyond the horizon and technologies that cannot be anticipated yet. But converting tens of thousands of pages is not something the company wants to do more than once in a hundred years, and certainly not any time soon. Protecting the investment in the documentation is, therefore, a critical ingredient in devising a long-term documentation strategy.
<H1>Contact us</H1>
Contact us if you need technical writing help with any of your documentation projects.
And visit <a href="http://www.chars.com/links.html" title="Technical documentation services">Characters</a>
Visit also our <a href="hebrew-technical-writing.html" title="Technical writing Hebrew">Hebrew page</a> and our <a href="technical-writing-resources-project-management.html" title="Resrouces">resources page</a>
And visit also <a href="http://www.aldwell.com/" title="The Aldwell Center">The Aldwell Center</a>
Last updated: Dec 5, 2009
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