Tools a Technical Writer Should Be Equipped with

A technical writer or a creative writer is active every moment. He is not like other professionals as when they sit at their business only then they think of the art of business. A writer’s mind is always active. Surprisingly many writers are found visualizing stories and events that inspire them to write stories even in dreams. When they are in sleep!

A technical writer is however different from a creative writer in certain ways. A creative writer might create a wide room out of nothing or a simple thing can inspire him to create a world. While a technical writer concentrates more on professional aspects. He has to develop the meat for a given topic; he has expertise in it. At least he is expected of this. A creative writer writes on the things which he finds interest in; he is not meant to write on a given topic. He creates topic, story and the moral, if any, himself. If he is able to write on a given topic, he may be known as extra ordinarily prolific write. But such writers are fewer.

A technical writer must be ready to deal in the subjects that are brought to him. His job is involved of technicalities in addition of the skills of writing. He must be aware of some of the basic functionalities of computer based tools. Computer based tools are very supportive in developing different types of professional writings such: documentation, scripting, blogs, ebooks, web contents and many more. Some of the popular tools that a technical writer may handle most frequently are described below.

Publishing Tools:

For publishing you need to work either in Framework, MS Word, Interleaf, Arbor Text, Quark Express and Page Maker or a combination of more than one tool.

Frame Work: Adobe Frame Maker is one of the most popular tools used in technical writing. MS Word: Any one may be famous with this word processor. It is widely common and most practical tool.

Interleaf: Interleaf in not as common a tool but is popular with some shops.

Arbor Text: It’s a top-end XML/SGML authoring program but is very expensive; and not as common however.

Quark Express: This is a preferred tool largely in marketing and magazine posts. It’s very helpful for the beginners.

Page Maker: Used mainly for small documentation projects, but has great graphics and layout features.

Graphics Tools include –

Illustrator: Highly required for technical illustration in documentation.

Corel Draw: Required for almost all types of drawing works.

Photo Shop: Most preferred and highly manageable multipurpose programmer.

Paint Shop Pro: Widely useful in web works and is easy-to-use.

Help Tools:

RoboHelp: RoboHelp is one of the most demanded tools in ads.

Doc-To-Help: This is similar to RoboHelp in popularity.

ForeHelp: ForeHelp is a similar tool demanded in ads but is low in manageability.

Web Tools:

Front Page: Front Page is a very common and preferred program.

Dream Weaver: Much similar to FrontPage in programming.

Both are required for site management and scripting purpose.