TW Resources
Here’s a select list of my favorite technical writing resources. I use these all the time:
Web Programming and Design
- HTML Entities, and URL encoder/decoder
- Web font statistics and Esperfonto font selection tool
- Browser Statistics and Browser Display Dimensions
- CSS Examples and online testing tool and CSS-Discuss wiki. Also, a listing of browser support for new web standards.
- Elements of Typographical Style applied to the web by Richard Rudder. Guided by Bringhurst’s principles.
- Embeddable Web Fonts Wiki and how to embed fonts. See also Fontsquirrel’s embeddable fonts which are free for commercial use and Kernest fonts (which seem to be web-embeddable; doublecheck). See also this thread and this guide to different kinds of embedding.
- Section 508 Compliance and W3 Web Accessibility Guidelines
- Tutorials: XSL, XML Schema, xpath
Tools
- Zamzar free file conversion wizard.
- Utilities: winmerge, Tortoise SVN, filezilla, putty
- Snagit (online demos & online help), a $49 screen capture utility with extra features.
- Open Source Publishing: scribus, gimp, inkscape
- Freeware utility index
- Screencasting programs: Camstudio (Windows only), Wink
- Notetab Light, main text editor I use (Windows only).
- Windows Live Writer, a desktop xml-rpc friendly blog editor.
- Oxygen XML Editor. Full-featured commercial xml/xslt editor (with forums). See also XML Mind (also commercial) which is targeted towards documentation.
References
- Subversion Book
- Typographic Design Patterns and Best Practices and 10 Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines. By Smashing Magazine.
- Better Font Stacks by Nathan Ford. See also codestyle’s font stack articleand Micheal Tuck’s article on the same topic.
- Organizing Content is a 15 part series by Tom Johnson about the challenges of information architecture and usability. Highly recommended.
- Oasis OpenDocument Ebook
- CSS Wiki and CSS Mailing list
- Technical Writing: Online TW Textbook and Managing Technical Writing online book
- Help-Authoring Matrix: Let’s you find the right documentation tool for the job. Note: software companies pay a fee to be listed here.
- Indoition has a good index of technical writing resources, including a review of Help Authoring Systems, Screencasting Tools and a Documentation Quality Checklist.
- Reference Cards: restructured text and an index of other cheat sheets.
- S5 Web presentation reference guide. Fascinating single-source solution for presentations.
- Klariti information re technical writing. They sell excellent-looking MS Word templates of assorted project/planning documents which technical writers usually have to submit to project managers.
- Agile Documentation, Scott Ambler’s summary of how documentation interacts with project management.
XML Flavors: Docbook and DITA
- Docbook Definitive Book, and Docbook XSL book
- Docbook-apps mailing list,
- Docbook HTML parameters reference (also the fo parameter reference).
- R.L. Hamilton’s article on DocBook vs. DITA
- DITA: 1.1 Specification, DITA XML Wiki, Ditaworld, DITA Users Mailing List, Dita for Publishers epub plugin,
Education & Technical Writing Weblogs/Portals
- I‘d Rather Be Writing is Tom Johnson’s cutting edge blog about documentation, blogging, wordpress and tech writing topics.
- UX MAtters is a academically-oriented usability blog
- elearningpost , an outstanding site with links to usability, information architecture and instructional design.
- Content Wrangler, a good news site on new technologies in documentation.
- Elearningcurve, a blog about instructional technology and technical writing
- I Came, I saw, I learned is Iconlogic’s blog with tutorials, reviews about technical writing products (Adobe, Camtasia, etc).
- User Advocacy, weblog by Houston technical writer Chris Borokowski
- Just Write Click is a blog by Austin technical writer Anne Gentle.
- I occasionally write posts about technical writing on my idiotprogrammer weblog.
- Creating Passionate Users by user advocate Kathy Sierra
- This is Broken (Good Experience) Weblog humorous weblog that illustrates usability and documentation problems by using real life examples.
- Oreilly XML Weblog, a series of articles written by O’Reilly authors.
- Jim Thoughtspot, XML Technology blog, with emphasis on DITA and technical writing.
- Boxes and Arrows, a leading site for information architecture and user interfaces. They have sections for Findability, Usability, and Learning from Others, plus a lot more. No RSS feeds for each section, but lots of articles added weekly.
- Open Office Training Weblog, full of tutorials and resources.
- TECHWR-L Forums, google group mirror of world’s largest mailing list for technical writers.
- Microsoft.public.word.docmanagement, a high traffic newsgroup for MS Word users.
- Daily Blog Tips & Weblog Tools Collection allow you to stay current about WP weblog technology
Houston/Texas Resources
- STC-Houston Forum
- Techblog, Dwight Silverman’s excellent technology blog for the Houston Chronicle. (I briefly wrote some guest articles for this blog).
- Idiotprogrammer Weblog. My personal weblog which covers a wide range of topics (not just technology). The weblog has a section specifically devoted to technical writing and even a separate RSS feed for technical writing.
Epub & Ebooks Resources
- Oxygen XML: Oxygen-user mailing list; Latest user manual; video demos
- Epub Specifications: OPS, OPF
- Free & Budget Epub creation tools: Jutoh, Calibre (User Guide), Atlantis, (blog), Writer2epub (with English forum), (Export from Open Office),
- Epub Zen Garden
- Epub Resources (collected by Keith Fahlgren); Epubcheck tool (and online version)
- Blogs: Threepress Epub blog, Epub books blog, Tools of Change and the irreverent ebook test
- MobileRead epub forum and Calibre ebook conversion software
- list of ipad’s ebook reader apps (June 2010)
Podcasts
- SXSW Podcast, lots of podcasts from SXSW conference, with many topics of interest to technical writers.
- IT Conversations, a leading portal for podcasts on new technologies (especially web technologies).
Book Production
- a free download to people making print books on Createspace (with generally useful information).
- Mobileread list of free and commercial ebook sellers.
- Stanza FAQ
- discussion about using wordpress for book publishing