In a recent project, we needed a multi-slide printing format that included the slide notes.
PowerPoint allows you to print multiple slides on a page, but you can’t include the slide notes. The only option you have is one slide per page with notes which was not a convenient format for the training facilitator.
Traditionally software development follows the “waterfall” model, so-called because the stages of development (requirements, design, implementation, verification, and maintenance) sequentially flow down until the project is completed.
Since the waterfall development cycle is typically quite long, requirements documents such as functional specifications are created to protect against the departure of key staff members and ensure that new employees can quickly come up to speed. These same documents also allow technical writers to work with relative independence.
Last month I put forward the view that technical writers can make great business analysts because the skill sets are very similar, and by employing someone who has a background in technical writing you have the advantage that you will always get great written artefacts.
Today I want to go into a bit more depth on a comparison of the skill sets.
For a while I’ve considered myself a pretty good user of Microsoft products like Word and Excel, and I’ve always been figuring out new things to do with them. I’ve heard a lot about macros but they’ve always seemed to be a magical thing that was used to do very complicated things, but I wasn’t really sure what sort of things.