Category: Techwrite
Have you applied for that technical writer job yet? Here's a bit of unsolicited advice for getting started and keeping that new technical writer job:
1. Know where all the images, templates, and resources are kept. Take note of every FTP, remote, or local server the company has (whether you have official access to it or not). One day, you'll have to search for something in places everyone else doesn't know about. Moreover, have your own personal list of online resources ready for scenarios when you're just not sure how to get the job done.
2. Know which style guide to use and when to use it. There are a ton of style guides for every industry: Chicago Manual of Style, Microsoft Manual of Style, Harvard, NASA, or your own company rule book. National Geographic's style guide has seen dozens of revisions and can be as thick as any Gabriel Garcia Marquez book. If the editor isn't aware if they have one, ask someone who does.
3. Know how to edit vector images. The digital artist guy probably has his ears up in work and it could take forever to get a minor edit of an illustration done. You don't have to be the Leonardo Da Vinci of Illustrator or CorelDraw or a smug DeviantArt regular. In most cases, you'll be working with a 2D illustrations anyway, not a full CAD illustration complete with physics equations. Photoshop, the darling of the masses, can do miracles and everyone knows how to use it, but it has its place in bitmap files not vector images.
4. Designers and technical writers are two different things. You can be one, the other, or both, but their tasks are totally different. Not all designers find reading specifications and hardware instructions scintillating.
5. It's a plus to know how to network file shares and work with commercial printers. Everyone will be too busy to teach you. Remember, you have to share your files too and using a USB flash drive isn't practical when your contact is across the country. At the very least, understand how Mac and Windows shares files. Understanding how commercial printers work, on the other hand, goes a long way when working on printed documents.
6. Know how to boot to Linux. Linux can be used to test hardware, access the network, tame a poorly maintained PC, backup files, access a "secure" PC, and countless other tasks. Have it handy on a LiveUSB. Having a fully-equipped Linux distribution can solve plenty of file format and application problems. Moreover, all types of coding, programming, layout and design tasks can be done on a Linux system in case your workstation dies and there's a deadline coming. Any of the general-purpose Linux distributions (e.g. Ubuntu, openSUSE, Debian, Fedora) can run Gimp, VirtualBox, Kompozer, Scribus, Grsync, etc. Clonezilla is also mighty handy for imaging workstations and backing up your work.
7. If you can, install VirtualBox and import a Linux appliance you setup yourself (complete with all the applications you need). Having VirtualBox around helps with running beta-CDs and DVDs saved as ISOs, running sandboxes, and testing environments. If you're running a Windows system, having VirtualBox or any other of the popular virtualization software also helps with legacy software and file formats (e.g. Adobe PageMaker and older QuarkXPress releases). Linux users, of course, can use Xen, VirtualBox, or Qemu.
8. Always think about the translators who will eventually work on your document because they'll be thinking (i.e. cursing) you.
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