Do you need a technical writer who creates a specific user manual or online help file for you? Or do you even want to supply both printed and online documentation with your products for the price of one?

As technical writers we can create all components of your technical documentation in the required formats – either in English or in German. All texts will be written in plain, clear language, and will be well structured and organized into small modules. This makes your documents user-friendly and easy to update.

With the help of specialized authoring tools, a technical writer can generate printed user manuals and online help from the same, shared source. If required, even different versions of the documents can be produced from this source such as documentation for a standard version and documentation for a pro version of the same software, for example. This is known as "cross media publishing", "multi channel publishing", "single source publishing" or simply "single sourcing".

Following this approach, identical content can be used in several places but the technical writer must create them only once. What is even more: the content also must be updated only once. The gain multiplies with each future release and with each translation. In addition to the cost savings, there is the saving in time.

By the way:
This web site is also an example of single source publishing. First, there is the online version in HTML format; second there is a printable brochure in PDF format.

From the technical point of view, single sourcing can be achieved quite simply, especially due to the widespread use of XML. The challenge is on the editorial side. All content must be structured and formulated in a way that guaranties that there will be no compromise in output quality in none of the generated versions. This calls for special authoring expertise.

Since the mid 90s, we have been successfully using single sourcing in most software documentation projects, which made us one of the pioneers in this field (see also Publications and Presentations).

If you need to supply your documentation in different languages, we can find qualified translators and coordinate the translation process for you.