Table of Contents

DITA quick and rude guides


DITA versions


DITA tools

  • DITA tools - 1 (Planning): IBM Information Architecture Workbench is an Eclipse-based freeware that I find marvellously handy for organising my thoughts and then committing those thoughts to DITA file types and maps.
  • Dita tools - 2 (Authoring): I am very comfortable using Notepad to write in DITA. But there are times when I forget if a particular DITA tag can be used at a particular place. That's when XMLMind is handy.
  • DITA tools - 3 (Transforming): Running the ANT builds through a GUI.
  • DITA tools - 4 (Authoring): A free WYSIWYG editor with an output preview and built-in transform engine.

Writing in DITA


Usability


Writing


Language and Grammar


Career

  • Building a portfolio: A portfolio is your business card - it plays a large role in determining whether you get that interview call.
  • Matter of ownsership (ethics): It is extremely bad behaviour to use a company's resources (authoring tools, documentation infrastructure) to create something and show it off as a sample without seeking the company's permission first.
  • I want to be a technical writer: "My sister has decided to take up a full time career in technical writing. She is good in English and was a science student in her postgrad. She's been a stay-at-home mom all these years. What does she need to do?"
  • What is technical writing: In less than 100, 50, and 20 words.
  • The Covering Letter: Hiring managers of "hot" companies must be getting tons of these. What can I do to make my covering letter interesting enough to make them click that link that takes them to my actual résumé?
  • The Expert and I: "Oh, we are all there to help you", grand sweep of the arm indicating the entire doc team. "Besides, for your product, there’s this SME whom you can ask if you need anything."
  • What am I: I am a technical writer. Eh, what? What's that?

Community

  • Harvest, separate grain from chaff, release to market: In 2008, the TWIN mailing-list archive had over 35,000 posts. These posts represent the accumulated knowledge of a community sharing and learning from its members. However, searching the archives was not easy. So was born the TWIN e-book compilation project - so that the info was accessible.
  • How to mechanise the harvesting: Or, how to eliminate labour-intensive work in the TWIN e-book compilation project.
  • Documenting Mjrz.net: A short post that records the writing of a small Help for a SourceForge project. The project has, since, ceased to exist.
  • Translating WikyBlog to Bengali: A 2-line post that records the activity.
  • Documenting TransProCalc: A short post that records the writing of a Help for a small financial tracking software.

Obiter dicta