documentation

The term is derived from the idea that engineers and programmers "document" their products in formal writing. The earliest computer users were sometimes simply handed the engineers' or programmers' "documentation." As the product audience grew, it became necessary to add professional technical writers and editors to the process. Today, IBM and other companies look at developing product information based on what users actually need to do when using the product. In this task-oriented view, product information can be divided into and sometimes physically organized into these task categories: evaluating, planning for, setting up or installing, customizing, administering, using, and maintaining the product. Documentation is now often built directly into the product as part of the user interface and in help pages. Printed technical manuals are increasingly available at company Web sites in the form of Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) files or in HTML pages. IBM and Microsoft are among the world's largest publishers.

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More resources from around the web: - The Society for Technical Communication offers information about technical writing.

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