Category: Tools

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This Worked for Me: Three Collaboration Tools for Technical Editors Who Use Word

By Amanda Altamirano

Many businesses use Microsoft Word as their primary tool for creating documentation and other digital texts. Using Word can be challenging when performing edits with multiple subject matter experts (SMEs) and individual contributors with varied writing skill levels.

As a technical communicator who was tasked with managing product suite documentation in Word, I had to find ways to streamline technical editing. After months of trial and error, I found three collaboration tools that integrate with Word that worked for me.

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New Feature: This Worked for Me

As the official publication of the STC Technical Editing SIG, Corrigo is full of useful information for technical editing practitioners.

One of the great things about having a community of like-minded professionals is that there might be someone here dealing with technical editing issues that might be quite similar to yours – using tools and process that might help you as well!

To help you see what your colleagues are doing to help them do their jobs better, we are introducing a new feature – This Worked for Me!

This new feature will provide real examples of tools and processes that real people doing real technical editing in the field use to solve real issues and improve the quality of the content that they edit.

Basically, the authors of these articles will say “here’s a great thing that I use, maybe you’ll find it useful as well!”

We will try to make sure that the articles in this feature are not simply advertisements for tools – we aren’t interested in what the tool does, we want to know what we can do with the tool.

To make it easier for you to find these articles again in the future, they will be tagged with a This Worked for Me tag, and the titles prefaced with the same phrase.

If you’d like to submit a story about a tool or process you’ve personally used to improve the quality of your technical editing or make your professional life easier, please send an email to editor@stc-techedit.org and tell us about it.

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Of Interest: CIDM Summer 2018 Conference on Judicious Editing

The Center for Information–Development Management (CIDM) brings together the most highly skilled and talented managers in the field of information development from across the US and internationally to facilitate the sharing of information about current trends, best practices, and developments within the industry, from information development to training and support.

This summer, the CIDM IDEAS Online Conference (24-25 July 2018) is dedicated to the field of technical editing, and includes some really fascinating topics and presenters (including Yoel Strimling, editor of Corrigo!):

IDEAS is a two-day industry conference that you can attend virtually from the comfort of your own office. The conference includes five 60-minute concurrent sessions in two tracks, giving you a choice of 11 unique presentations. Participate live according to the published schedule or watch a recording of any session when it’s more convenient for you.

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Quo Corrigo? Survey Results

At the end of April 2018, we sent out a survey called “Quo Corrigo?” asking Corrigo readers to tell us about what kind of content they wanted to see here.

We felt that Corrigo should only present information that focuses on technical editing, rather than on generic technical communication. But we weren’t sure what that meant exactly, so we turned to you to help us define the future scope and direction of Corrigo.

As of the end of June 2018, we’ve received 35 responses to our survey, and we thank all of you who took the time to tell us your opinions.

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Protecting Yourself from Injury While Using a Computer – Part 3: Eye Strain

by Geoff Hartgeoff-Australia-cropped

Editor’s note: This series of articles is taken from Appendix II of Geoff’s book Effective Onscreen Editing, 3rd edition (http://www.geoff-hart.com/books/eoe/onscreen-book.htm), which was published in May 2016. Republished for Corrigo with the author’s permission.

The more you use your computer, the greater the risk you’ll encounter a repetitive-stress injury (RSI) such as carpal tunnel syndrome. That’s not because computers are inherently harder on your body than (say) jogging, but rather because the problems are subtler and develop over longer periods. (Unless you jog 8 hours per day.) RSI results from overuse of a body part without giving it time to recover, so it’s also called an overuse injury. Given how much time modern editors spend at the keyboard, overuse is surely a risk. The most common problems fall into three categories, each of which will be discussed in separate blog posts:

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