Hi friends…. This article would be helpful for the beginners
who wish to become a technical writer… IT industry is not only a boon for
programmers, but it’s a great platform even for those who have passion towards
writing in a technical way. Let’s have a look at the tools normally used for
technical writing.
ADOBE FRAME MAKER:
Adobe frame maker is a desktop publishing tool which is used
to create large documents such as e books or manuals. This tool helps in the
step by step publication process right from authoring, structuring of
documents, review cycle management and publishing. It ensures better security
for graphic, table design, page layout and text. It has special formatting for
documents.
Frame maker (fm) has .fm as its extension for saving of a
document. It is an application similar to ms word with more functionality which
is required for the creation an e book or a pdf with proper formatting and
correct styling.
It has various tools for performing different functions. Catalogs
that are available in adobe frame maker are equation catalog, tool catalog,
character catalog and paragraph catalog.
Tool catalog – has the options like select tool, line tool, size tool etc which can be used for formatting and styling of the document.
Character catalog – this option helps to format the characters.
Paragraph catalog – consists of different options required to customize a paragraph.
Different formats of documents of adobe frame maker are:
VIEW ONLY – Creates a book or document which can be viewed but cannot be edited.
MIF – Creates a frame maker document which consists of statements that describes about the graphics and text.
HTML – Hyper Text Markup Language
SGML – Consists of elements and attributes for web
XML – Extensible Markup Language
TEXT ONLY – It is a simple text file.
FM 6.0 – Frame Maker 6.0
Adobe frame maker 11 is the latest version. Most of the
organizations make use of ms office word document instead of adobe frame maker.
SNAGIT:
It is a screen capture tool. It captures any image from the
computer screen directly. It includes the basic capture of software units such
as,
A region to file,
A region to clipboard,
A window screen to file,
etc.
It helps in the creation
of videos which help in the demonstration of any installation procedure etc.
Snagit 11 is the latest version.
It has an editor which
enables the user to edit the screen shots.
PHOTOSHOP:
It is one of the most
popular graphics programs. It is the important tool for editing of photos, re
touching and designing of web pages.
It helps in editing the
images or screen shots in a much easier way.
Every graphical change is
done layer by layer, when you are not satisfied with the changes then that
particular layer can be easily deleted using graphic editor.
Images can be saved in
different formats such as jpg, jpeg, gif and png.
Most commonly used tools by
technical writer are
Marquee tool – it is used
of selection of a region in the image. Click on marquee tool and drag on the
image to select the required area.
Move tool – it is used to
move the selected region of the image. Click on the move tool and drag the
selected image area and move.
Text tool – text can be
added to the image using text tool. Click on text tool, click on the image and
type the required text on the image.
Crop tool – after
completion of the editing process, the image can be cropped. Click on crop
tool, click on the image and press enter.
Photoshop 7 is the latest
version.
There other tools which
are used for technical writing such as RoboHelp and camatasia.
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