What’s the future for technical documentation and technical writing? This is one of two themes I’ll be talking about at the ISTC conference next month. Most of the discussions in the technical writing community focus on the process, focusing on Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA XML) and ways of writing online Help. There is less… Read more »

I caught part of Radio 4’s “Word of Mouth” programme last night, where they were discussing the difficulties in understanding mobile phone user manuals. An expert was explaining what the jargon meant (the expert makes a living by helping people to work out how to understand the latest technology). You can listen to the programme… Read more »

Adobe has released beta packs for DITA that extend the XML capabilities of FrameMaker 7.2 by adding support for core features of DITA. It consists of a set of plug-ins combined with a set of structure applications, which together provide core tools for DITA authoring and publishing.

Justin Darley is speaking at “Online Help Conference – Europe 2006”, which is being be held this week in Manchester. Ellis Pratt will be attending the STC’s Region 2 conference “Making Cents of Making Sense: Technical Communications and Business”. It is being held 13-14 October, in London. Ellis will be speaking at the ISTC conference… Read more »

News on RoboHelp for Technical Authors. Last month, we mentioned Adobe’s updated FAQs in our newsletter, but forgot to say there was a FAQ on RoboHelp. Apparently, the next major RoboHelp release is now planned for the first half of 2007, and you can submit new feature requests through the link on the FAQ page…. Read more »