Technical Communication is Possible because of Software
Today, there are hundreds of millions of computers worldwide with their various software used by businesses, governments and industry. Over 90% use some flavor of the Microsoft operating system and Microsoft Office for their electronic mail, data, presentations, word processing, and spreadsheets. The rest use either an Apple Macintosh and the Apple operating system and software, or a PC running some form of Linux, (a derivative of the Unix system used mainly on large “mainframe” machines) and “open license” software. Word Processors and Desktop Publishing Microsoft Word is probably the most popular word processing application widely used used everywhere. It is a full-featured word processing program for Windows and the Macintosh from Microsoft. MS Word is a sophisticated program with rudimentary desktop publishing capabilities is included in the Microsoft application suite. Although powerful and continually refined Word still has the disability to publish really large documents that industry requires. The main contender and the application that fills this requirement for very large documents is FrameMaker. This very capable software is a desktop publishing (DTP) and word processing application is produced by Adobe Systems. Adobe FrameMaker has evolved slowly in recent years however, because of it's capabilities it still is the choice among professional technical writers and industry. Framemaker just like MS Word has been upgraded many times reflecting the constant evolving requirements of business and industry. New standards like SMGL and derivatives XML and WebDAV are incorporated into it's proprietary single-desktop-oriented system based on a binary file format. Some other word processing and or desktop publishing applications in use by users include Corel's Wordperfect, IBM's Lotus WordPro, Sun's OpenOffice Writer. Other contenders in use include Arbortext, Interleaf, Corel Ventura and most recently LaTeX, DocBook and various Help authoring tools and XML editors. Photo Editing and Illustrating Perhaps the most popular and widely used photo editing application is Adobe Photoshop. With Photoshop photo images are easily manipulated through powerful numerous types of filters. It is also known as a “paint” program where individual image pixels are colored. Photoshop has many competitors some that are as powerful but less known and still others that are less capable. Competitors include Corel's Photopaint and PaintShop Pro (formerly Jasc), Adobe's Fireworks (formerly MacroMedia), and Gimp (an “open license” application). Adobe Illustrator just like Photoshop is the choice for many professionals. It is a drawing application used to create images using lines. As with Photoshop it also has many capable competitors. Competitors include Corel Draw and Macromedia Freehand (bought by Corel), Autodesk AutoCAD, ProEngineer, Solidworks, Inkscape/ Sodipodi, and others. Flowchart and Capture Microsoft Visio and Corel Flow are examples of specialized niche applications possessing component features of draw and paint programs. The main difference is the emphasis of use. Of the two applications mentioned MS Visio is the more popular and used to create flowcharts, graphs, calenders, schematics and other technical process images. Visio makes it quick and easy by providing icons, chart and line tools. Corel Flow works in similar fashion as do other similar applications on the market Another type of specialized software are the “capture” applications such as Corel Capture, Hyperonics HyperSnap, MadCap Capture which are used to take “screen captures” from the Windows screen of the computer monitor. Graphics and text are easily captured. This information can also be edited as required by HyperSnap for example saving time. Help Authoring Flare from MadCap Software is now the leading help authoring tool for the PC. It has bumped Adobe RoboHelp from the podium which until recently ruled the help authoring tool field. Flare's code meshes with W3C XHTML specifications, allowing easy integration with other XML or XHTML applications. It is an XML-based, vastly more capable content authoring application, designed for the publishing demands of business and industry today. In the past another main competitor was WinHelp, a somewhat less capable application. Again, this is a specialized niche software used mainly for online help situations. QuickHelp is now for the Linux operating system what RoboHelp is for the Microsoft system. Share Cross-platform Adobe Acrobat is the leading best known and used program that allows the user to share documents across multiple operating systems. The beauty about this software is that it makes giving others a polished electronic or print copy of your documents less of a hassle if they don't have the same software in their computer as you. It reformats other program files into a common one called PDF. For example, if you had a text file created in MS Word or Adobe FrameMaker or some other application, Acrobat converts the file into a PDF allowing others to view it even if they do not own Word or FrameMaker applications in their computers. Acrobat allows control of a number of different document features and is regularly tweaked by Adobe improving it's abilities so it is a very versatile tool for technical communication. Software Simulation MadCap Mimic is a unique software simulation tool that allows quick and easy movie creation of software. It uses advanced compression techniques to minimize the movie file size and allows easy incorporation of background audio or customized narration. Companies can use the movies created in their training for their e-learning, online Help, marketing and sales, and technical support systems. Mimic integrates easily with other software from MadCap and in particular with Flare.
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