http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/ The Knowledgedoc blog features discussions of the technical writing profession, knowledge management techniques and tips for writing, editing, formatting and using documentation based software applications. http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/embedded-topics.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/embedded-topics.html Embedded topics are the smallest chunks of information that can be reused many times in other topics. Topics in turn are the cohesive chunks of information delivered to end users. As its name implies, the embedded topic is included where it’s needed within the topic. Tue, 06 Oct 2015 10:45:00 +1000 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/illustrator-introduction-to-pen-tool.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articlesillustrator-introduction-to-pen-tool.html The Pen tool is the defining tool of Illustrator. Using this tool and its related tools you can recreate any shape as a vector graphic. Tue, 29 Sep 2015 10:45:00 +1000 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/technical-writer-skills.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/technical-writer-skills.html Technical writers don’t just write. We are highly accomplished professionals who are multi-skilled. In order to write effectively, technical writers must have research, analysis and interviewing skills to gather the required information together, expert writing skills, strong design and layout skills, editing expertise and a knowledge of output formats and publishing tools. Tue, 22 Sep 2015 10:45:00 +1000 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/word-multiple-windows.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/word-multiple-windows.html Word has a very useful feature that speeds up editing - letting you view a Word document in two windows at the same time. Tue, 15 Sep 2015 10:45:00 +1000 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/single-source-training-materials.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/single-source-training-materials.html For instructor-led training to be effective and enduring, content is needed before, during and after the face-to-face session. In this article I’ll briefly discuss how we designed training materials using single sourcing Tue, 08 Sep 2015 10:45:00 +1000 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/illustrator-vector-text.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/illustrator-vector-text.html Part two of the three part series on creating a vector image of a logo from a source file in Adobe Illustrator. This article will demonstrate the vectorisation of the Dell logo text. Tue, 01 Sep 2015 10:45:00 +1000 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/save-money-with-great-writing.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/save-money-with-great-writing.html Unfortunately, in the big world of business where everything has to be cost-justified, documentation is usually seen as a cost, not a benefit. Because “everyone can write”, technical and business writing is rarely seen as a valuable profession. So, why would you hire a professional writer? What value can they add to your organisation? Tue, 25 Aug 2015 10:30:00 +1000 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/tracking-website-statistics.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/tracking-website-statistics.html Want to know how many people are looking at your website? Or what your most popular page is? Google Analytics is a great tool for tracking activity on your website. This article introduces Google Analytics and runs you through my favourite features. Tue, 18 Aug 2015 10:30:00 +1000 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/role-based-content-for-training.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/role-based-content-for-training.html Managers, cashiers and administrators perform common and unique functions at a hospitality venue. In this article I’ll briefly discuss how we designed joint training sessions using single sourcing. Tue, 11 Aug 2015 10:30:00 +1000 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/illustrator-vector-background.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/illustrator-vector-background.html This article is the first in a series of three that will demonstrate how to create a vector image in Adobe Illustrator from a source file. This article will cover creating the background of the image. Tue, 04 Aug 2015 10:30:00 +1000 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/business-continuity-and-technical-writing.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/business-continuity-and-technical-writing.html I recently spent three years working as a Business Continuity (BC) Manager and loved it! Prior to that, I spent a very long time in the technical writing field. Many people have asked me how and why I made the transition to BC, and it made me reflect on the similarities and differences in the skills needed for the two roles. Tue, 28 Jul 2015 10:30:00 +1000 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/references-with-endnote.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/references-with-endnote.html EndNote is a great reference management system that’s much more efficient than using Microsoft Word’s citations functionality and infinitely better than doing the references manually. EndNote is a program that manages a collection of reference information that relates to a particular project. Tue, 21 Jul 2015 10:30:00 +1000 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/role-based-user-guides.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/role-based-user-guides.html Managers, cashiers and administrators perform common and unique functions at a hospitality venue. In this article I’ll briefly discuss how we designed role-base user guides using single sourcing. Tue, 14 Jul 2015 10:30:00 +1000 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/layers-in-adobe-illustrator.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/layers-in-adobe-illustrator.html Managing shapes effectively when creating a vector image helps you avoid mistakes and increase productivity. The best way to manage shapes in Illustrator is to create layers for different shape categories. Tue, 07 Jul 2015 10:30:00 +1000 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/alignment-tab.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/alignment-tab.html From Word 2007 onwards a special type of tab stop called an alignment tab has been introduced. You can use the alignment tab in headers and footers to automatically readjust the position of the text depending on the margins or page orientation. Tue, 30 Jun 2015 10:30:00 +1000 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/introduction-to-sections.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/introduction-to-sections.html Microsoft Word documents can be separated into sections. Sections are important for many reasons, you can organise your document into chapters with sections and have pages change design and layout throughout your document. Tue, 23 Jun 2015 10:30:00 +1000 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/localising-with-single-sourcing.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/localising-with-single-sourcing.html Because Australia is part of the Asia-Pacific region, some organisations need to produce foreign-language versions of their content. The cost and turnaround time of translating and localising content can be significantly reduced by using single sourcing techniques and tools. Tue, 16 Jun 2015 10:30:00 +1000 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/introduction-to-adobe-illustrator.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/introduction-to-adobe-illustrator.html Adobe Creative Cloud is an awesome suite of applications for anyone looking to add additional polish to documentation. One of the most useful applications in the suite is Adobe Illustrator. This article introduces the main functions of Adobe Illustrator. Tue, 09 Jun 2015 10:30:00 +1000 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/10-things-technical-writers-do.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/10-things-technical-writers-do.html Technical writers don’t just write. And we don’t just write technical information. Here are 10 things that technical writers can do that you might not be aware of. Tue, 02 Jun 2015 10:30:00 +1000 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/numbered-captions-and-pages.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/numbered-captions-and-pages.html If you’ve set up numbered headings in your Microsoft Word document you might be wondering how to coordinate all the other numbers in your document with your headings. This article will discuss ways to add chapter numbers to page numbers and caption numbers, in the format of 1-1, 1-2 for chapter 1 and 2-1, 2-2 for chapter 2. Typically you use the Heading 1 style to signify a new chapter. Tue, 26 May 2015 10:30:00 +1000 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/creating-single-sourcing-topics.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/creating-single-sourcing-topics.html In this article I delve into how we isolate common content into a topic and reuse it many times in other topics. Tue, 19 May 2015 10:30:00 +1000 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/creative-bank.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/creative-bank.html The technical writer is the communication industry’s version of a Swiss-army knife. For any given project a technical writer is required to draw upon skills covering writing, graphic design, programming, and project management. Achieving this goal means effectively managing and updating your “creative bank” of skills. Tue, 12 May 2015 10:30:00 +1000 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/online-or-printed.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/online-or-printed.html This article discusses whether there is any place for printed documentation in 2015. Tue, 05 May 2015 10:30:00 +1000 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/making-an-rss-feed.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/making-an-rss-feed.html Rich Site Summaries, known as RSS feeds, are a great way to publish frequently updated information such as news or blog articles. This article will discuss how to create and maintain an RSS feed on your website. Tue, 28 Apr 2015 10:00:00 +1000 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/introduction-to-single-sourcing.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/introduction-to-single-sourcing.html Writing content once, then reusing it provides many benefits. You can organise your content better, reduce its overall cost and publish it for viewing on the favourite devices of your users. Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:50:00 +1000 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/publishing-creatively.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/publishing-creatively.html Being creative during the publishing phase is challenging. Unlike the planning and writing phases, which have rich creative possibilities, the publishing phase is characterised by rigid output formats and methodical tasks. In this article I will discuss employing creativity in the publishing phase. Tue, 14 Apr 2015 16:50:00 +1000 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/changing-word-styles-order.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/changing-word-styles-order.html Once you have set up your Quick Styles gallery with the styles you use most frequently, you should change the order so that your most frequently-used styles are at the beginning of the list. This will speed up the style selection process. Tue, 07 Apr 2015 11:09:00 +1100 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/introduction-to-rss.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/introduction-to-rss.html For years I’ve seen the acronym RSS around, or the bright orange RSS symbol but it wasn’t until I started managing the Knowledgedoc blog that I actually investigated what these things were. It turns out that an RSS feed is a really great tool for following a blog. In this article I’ll introduce you to RSS feeds and how to follow all your favourite organisations. Tue, 31 Mar 2015 13:00:00 +1100 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/writing-creatively.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/writing-creatively.html Technical documentation must always be accurate and easy-to-understand. This means using unambiguous terms, avoiding long sentences, and enabling users to easily find information. This can sound a bit dry, but crafting good documentation requires a creative mindset during each project phase. Tue, 24 Mar 2015 13:00:00 +1100 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/preparing-online-content.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/preparing-online-content.html For over a dozen years we’ve been delivering online help and printable information for the many based on the expertise of the few. To produce printable information, we publish from our authoring tool to Microsoft Word and save from there to a PDF. Tue, 17 Mar 2015 13:00:00 +1100 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/word-quick-styles.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/word-quick-styles.html Sue discusses getting the most out of Microsoft Word's Quick Styles panel, customising the styles appearing on the panel to best suit your needs. Tue, 10 Mar 2015 13:00:00 +1100 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/planning-creatively.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/planning-creatively.html Thinking creatively is an essential skill for technical writers. Over three articles I will explore some of the ways creativity can be employed during a documentation project. This week is all about the planning stage and several ways creativity can help you manage a documentation project. Tue, 03 Mar 2015 13:00:00 +1100 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/converting-word-to-online.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/converting-word-to-online.html We humans forget how old we really are: we contain 14.3 billion year old hydrogen molecules and 3.6 billion year old life-giving molecules such as DNA and its precursors. It’s little wonder that we’re very good at breathing but not so good at driving (since 1888) or using Microsoft Word (since 1983). Project sponsors usually over-estimate the ability of their subject matter experts to use Word to create online content for their end-user audience. I look at some of the steps to reformat and prepare a Word document to import into our authoring tool; enabling us to create a variety of outputs, including online help. Tue, 24 Feb 2015 13:00:00 +1100 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/writing-for-search-engines.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/writing-for-search-engines.html Rachel discusses the best way to write web content that will be noticed by search engines. Tue, 17 Feb 2015 13:00:00 +1100 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/use-word-styles.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/use-word-styles.html Sue shares her top five reasons to make the time to learn how to use Word styles. Tue, 10 Feb 2015 13:00:00 +1100 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/project-management-for-writers.pdf http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/project-management-for-writers.pdf This week features a Southern Communicator article by Penelope Goward and Sue Woolley discussing their techniques for managing writing projects. Penelope and Sue also run courses in project management for writers. Tue, 03 Feb 2015 13:00:00 +1100 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/numbered-headings.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/numbered-headings.html Numbered headings can be very useful for organising your document into sections. This article will cover using Word’s predefined numbered headings and setting up your own numbered heading scheme. Tue, 27 Jan 2015 13:00:00 +1100 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/capturing-content.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/capturing-content.html I’m a dinosaur when it comes to mobile devices. What did I do when faced with capturing content for a mobile app from an iPhone? Call in one of the children to help of course. Tue, 20 Jan 2015 13:00:00 +1100 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/creative-traps.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/creative-traps.html Creativity is an essential skill for technical communicators, but it must be carefully managed to ensure the quality of the content is not being compromised. This article looks at three of the most common errors made by writers making the switch from creative to technical writing. Tue, 13 Jan 2015 13:00:00 +1100 http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/software-documentation.html http://www.knowledgedoc.com.au/blog/articles/software-documentation.html A discussion of the necessity of software documentation in current society. Tue, 06 Jan 2015 13:00:00 +1100