Technical Writing Skills

Technical skills

While you'll need to know a variety of software tools to produce documentation, you'll also benefit from knowing some technologies that are currently being used in the marketplace. Some technologies you'll benefit from knowing are:

• SQL
• JAVA
• Visual Basic
• C/C++
• SGML
• HTML
• XML
• PDF

I am not suggesting that you need to be a programmer to be a technical writer (in most cases). However, having at least a working knowledge of one or more programming languages will make you more valuable to an employer and increase your salary!!!

Knowing the technologies that are the basis for creating web pages will be a useful tool. In some cases, a company might use their technical writers to create and maintain the corporate web site and intranet. Knowing a little about the different markup languages will make performing these sorts of task a breeze. Companies are also pushing to produce their documentation in electronic formats rather than in print. HTML and XML are two possible technologies you would use to create electronic documents.

PDF is a common technology that allows you to produce documents that will work on any operating system. PDF is most often used to create downloadable versions of printed documents. If you learn FrameMaker, you'll also end up familiarizing yourself with PDF.

 

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