Round-up of newest resources for technical writers: pick the right documentation format and more

We frequently post various resources to notify authors and technical writers about relevant news, articles, tips and tricks… to be as effective as possible at their daily jobs. Here is a selection of some recent resources we posted to various social networks. You should consider following us to get notified about future posts at: FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or Google+.

Picking the right format to publish your help files can be tricky.
This is the big question we’re answering in the following article: should you publish a print manual (hard copy), or a screen manual (PDF, CHM, Web based HTML, eBook format…) ?

What kind of mistakes do you make when writing documentations?
See the 5 mistakes you should never make when writing help manuals:

When you write a great help manual you do two things: help customers find and use appropriate solutions easily and slash your business customer support costs significantly.
Here are some advices on how to write the best help manuals:

HelpNDoc’s project analyzer helps you concentrate on writing by automatically spotting problems in your projects.
Learn how to use HelpNDoc’s project analyzer to check your documentation projects for potential issues in this video guide:

So true:
“Most writers can write books faster than most publishers can write checks”
— Richard Curtis

Are comic user manuals more interactive and easier to use than other help files designs?
What do you think:

Starting is hard, and perfection takes time…

Once your documentation is written, it’s time to generate multiple formats. HelpNDoc lets you customize its look and feel by providing a very powerful template editor. Learn how to use it in the following video:

Are you reading enough ?
“The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.”
— Samuel Johnson.

“I never had any doubts about my abilities. I knew I could write. I just had to figure out how to eat while doing this”
— Cormac McCarthy

Punctuation saves lives ;)
What’s the worst punctuation error you’ve seen on a help manual?

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Categories: articles
Tags: social networks