Software Business

Writing Good Software Documentation

After Finishing Your Document

(page 3 of 3)

Published on: November 16, 2006

Proofreading

Go over the document once or twice, to make sure that the grammar you used is accurate, that you have spelled the words right, that you haven't skipped any important information and that you have formatted all your text properly.

Insert the Table of Contents

Once you're sure that your text is OK, insert the table of contents. It is preferable that it has no more than 3 - 4 levels, but this depends on what you deem important and how obvious you want some information to be to your readers.

Insert the Indexes

It is now time to index the most important terms and phrases in your document. Remember to update the table of contents afterwards.

Send the Document to be Reviewed

After checking that everything is in order, table of contents, indexes and text altogether, send the document to one of the Subject Matter Experts (SME) for review. Ask that they use the Track Changes function, so that you can see exactly what they have modified and where you should concentrate your attention.

After you receive it back, you either have to go over some of the above-mentioned steps in order to correct possible errors or fill in some information gaps, or the document will be approved and you can forward it to the proper department so that it can be distributed to customers, and you can start working on the next document.

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All in all, it is important to always keep in mind that communication is a key factor in the work of a technical writer. Communication with the technical writing team (where it exists), with the engineers, with the SMEs, with the deployment staff, the marketing staff, sometimes even with the programmers. This is the only way that a technical writer within a company can progress and evolve into a real professional.

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1 Responses

Neha says:
July 15th, 2008 at 9:19 am

I deem its a great article. Helped me quite alot.