A question for Tech Writers!

[pyat]

I have a question for all the tech writers on my friend's list, or all the folks in software/process documentation, and related fields.

The set-up is this. I've been a tech writer for about 7 years, but I have absolutely no specific training in the field. I have a generic journalism degree. I sort of drifted into tech writer from general corporate writing. I'm finding myself at a loss because I've had almost no exposure to the software tools used for authoring and documentation.

If I were to enroll in some night classes or continuing education, what software training should I be looking for?

Comments

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

InDesign is the tool of choice for doing anything that's reasonably short but heavy on layout. For example, magazine pages, or layout-intensive books. For doing serious technical writing work, that involves lots of cross-referencing, tables of contents and figures, heavy-duty text editing tools, it's not a great place to go. Some of the "tech writing" as opposed to "layout wizard" functionality can be added to InDesign through third-party add-ins, but then the cost starts becoming truly crazy.

For classical. serious technical writing that's still done with desktop software, and with intention of printed page output (i.e. long manuals or documents in traditional form), FrameMaker has been the tool of choice for over two decades. It's expensive and idiosyncratic, but it's still pretty much unmatched for specific kinds of projects.

Pricing and bundling on Frame used to be much more sensible. Now you can buy it on its own for 1000.00 USD; or you can buy "Adobe Technical Communication Suite" containing Frame, RoboHelp, Photoshop, Captivate, Presenter, and Acrobat Pro, for 2000.00 USD. Serious money. However -- it's conceivable that this cost might be nearly the same as an education course once you figured in tuition, books, driving time and costs, etc, and you've got some serious-ass production software there for your money. I'm not sure if either Frame or Tech Comm Suite have educational pricing options, but they might...

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Please note that my comments about InDesign are based on the features it had in CS2. At this point it's several versions on (it's up to CS4 now), and it's quite possible that some of the features that serious, long-task writers value in Frame are available in InDesign (dynamic cross-reference markers for example? not sure).