Skills used for Technical writers

Technical writing is a method of presenting information useful for documentation. Technical writers need to write letters, memos, proposals, manuals, web pages, newsletters and so on. They require good computer skills apart from writing the documents. There are several tools used for technical writing purpose. Technical writer should aware of tolls like Ms Office, Abode frame Maker, Rob help, Snag IT, Photoshop, Dream weaver and so on.
Whoever deals with computer might know about MS Word, but if you go through the manual of it we can see variety of option which is unknown to most of us. Person opting for Technical writing career must aware of the complete package of MS office. Must be thorough with basic concepts and d of word like
• Different Types of file extension/Template
• Header & Footer
• Comment
• Cross Reference
• Table of Content and Index
• Bookmark and Hyperlink
• Background Text and water mark
• Styles and Formatting
• Auto summarize
• Track Change
• Mail Merge
• Macro
• Template/ Styles
• Table of formatting

Adobe frame maker is another tool used for technical writing. It is a desktop publishing and word processing application used for documentation it can be structured and unstructured. Structured frame maker is a dynamic one and other is static There are several unique features for frame maker.
• Different master pages throughout the document with different styles and color
• Hypertext and different comment
• Background text and Watermark
• Style Formating and different tags for character and paragraph and can import style to other document.
• Track change
• Table formating
• Equation
• Graphics

Snag IT is screen capturing software, Photoshop and Dreamweaver are used for creating and editing purpose.
There are various similar set of software available in market. Technical writer must aware of these software for handling the project they are in.

Apart from these tools, ability to write unique content is a must .Technical writer should cultivate the habit of developing his writing skills which meet industry standards

This is written by Praveen P , faculty at IQTI, Bangalore