Useful links
for technical communicators

Large collection of hazard, warning, etc. icons added (18 June 2004).
EServer TC Library added (17 December 2003)
PDFzone added (20 November 2003)
New URL for Keith Soltys' website (12 December 2003)

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This page is a list of Web addresses and other useful Internet etc. addresses related to the subject. If you know any address not yet listed here, please send your information to Peter Ring, PRC on prc@prc.dk . If I find it relevant, I will list it. Company homepages related to writing, drawing, etc., only, will not be listed here, see instead, e.g., YahooSearch Results: TechWriters.

The list is sorted alphabetically.

See also the list of "National and International organisations for technical writers".
For mailing lists, etc. see the separate "List of mailing lists for technical communicators".

• Acronyms (try all):
• The Acronym Finder at http://www.AcronymFinder.com/. This is a database of more than 117,000 acronyms/abbreviations and their meanings.
• The Acronyms and Abbreviations finder from University College, Cork, Ireland at http://www.ucc.ie/cgi-bin/acronym .
• For EDP and especially network and web terms, try http://www.pcwebopedia.com, which includes a lot of good explanations.

• ATTW - The Association of Teachers of Technical Writing.

Homepage: This homepage includes further references, mainly to training of technical writers.
Newsgroup: see ATTW's homepage.

• "Best Viewed with any Browser" - Cari Burstein's website dedicated to the fight against fancy browser specific websites of the kind "Onlyviewable with MSIE 4+ with Java on and ShowView installed". URL: http://www.anybrowser.org/campaign/, which leads to its non-English language pages.

• BizManuals' Technical Writing links : American Business Resources, Inc's (BizManuals) website with lots of links and other information about technical writing. http://www.BizManuals.com/links/technicalwriting.html.
  
  
• Clipart, icons and other graphics collections. IconBAZAAR is a huge collection of reviewed and 1 to 5 star rated links to websites with graphcis collections on http://www.iconbazaar.com/.

• Comments to various aspects of technical writing with useful links: Diane Haugen's Quick Take section of Document Design at http://www.wcdd.com/dd/quicktakes/quick.html.

• Communication Resources - communication related news, books and web resources.

• The Copyrights Website: A website with a lot of useful information on copyright legislation and how to obtain copyright.

• Dictionaries: Robert Beard's list of 800+on-line or down-loadable dictionaries in 150+ languages (also incl. thesauri, grammars, multi-language directories and specialised directories) on http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/rbeard/diction.html. See also "Eurodicautom " below.

• Electrical symbols: Graphicalsymbols compliant to IEC Standard 417 - incl. symbols for use in manuals- are published with search facilities on the website of IkedaLab., ChibaUniversity, Japan.

• Eurodicautom is the multilingualon-line dictionary of the Translation Services of the European Community.It allows you to translate between any of currently 11 European languages+ Latin: Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Latin, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. It covers a large number of professions.

• European Union directives, see Peterborough .

• German activities (in German): Alexander von Obert's website on http://members.xoom.com/AvO/ includes a lot of up-to-date information, mainly on what's going on inGermany of interest for technical communicators.

• Graphic formats FAQ is a large website from The Ohio State University with a lot of information. The best entry is to my humble opinion this one. Part 3 contains a list of graphic formats with references to whereto find more information.

• Help files: See the special page on HTML helpfiles and Java.

• Hocum: Sean Hower's website with advices for technical writers + a "Technical Writer Ring" on http://hokum.freehomepage.com.

• HTML: There is a lot of info and links on the homepage of HTML Writer'sGuild on http://www.hwg.org/. The HTMLWriters Guild has (Dec. 97) 50,000+ members in 100+ countries.

• HTML specifications: The W3C = the WWW Consortium has on http://www.w3.org/ a website with a lot of official Internet information, including downloadable versions of the HTML specification documents. The HTML 4 code is available on http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/.

• XXX-to-HTML converters are listed on http://ann.nrg.com.au/nrg/sites/htmlconvert.html. An HTML-to-TXT converter for Win 3.1+ (shareware with time limited demo) can be downloaded from here.

• Icons: The German company CPTec offers a nice collection of free hazard, etc., symbols on their website on http://www.cptec.org/symbols.html. The core pages of the website are in English, too. The formats are GIF and EPS (CMYK).

• Inkspot's Resources For Science and Technical Writers contains  a number of useful links to other sources in six groups: Market information, Genres, Reference and research, Craft of writing, Networking, and Miscellanious.

• Internet Resources for Technical Communicators by Keith Solty contains a large number of very useful links to other sources on http://www.soltys.ca/techcomm.html/.

• ISO standards: ISO (International Organization for Standardisation) has a website on http://www.iso.ch/. Its working group (ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7 Working Group 2) for standardisation within the area of software incl. documentation of software has a website on http://www.hci.com.au/iso/, which includes a list of current projects.

• Jakob Nielsen's website on user interface, usability, and web design. The website includes a lot of useful references, including Jakob's own books.

• Java and JavaScript, see the special linkspage.

• John Renish's booklist . 71+ pages of references to written and Internet resources within technical writing. Click here for further information and instructions on how to download it from this website as an MS Word 6/7 document or as a textfile.

• Lone Writers' Professional Interest Committee is a subsection of STC for members working as the only technical writer in their organisation. They have a homepage on http://www3.sympatico.ca/bkeevil/lonewriter.html with Q&A, meetings, etc., and a list of interesting websites for lonewriters. Some day in the future, it will be moved to the STCwebsite.

• Machine translation:
• Babelfish: There is an online translation engine on http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/, able to translate "short texts" between English (to/from) and French, German,Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.
• FreeTranslation: There is an online translation engine on http://www.freetranslation.com/, able to translate up to 1300 words in the folowing combinations: Spanish/French/German > English and English > Spanish/French/German/Italian/Norwegian/Portuguese.
• Systran offers a limited version "Systran Personal" of the Systran translation engine on http://www.systransoft.com/personal.html able to translate the same combination of languages. Systran Personal has a limitation of 5k characters per batch and costs from 29 to 49 US$ (downloaded)or 69 US$ (CD-ROM).

• Medical writing: Resources for Medical Writers on the Internet on http://online.emich.edu/~lib_stanger/medical.htm.

• Mailing lists etc.: see the "List of mailing lists for technical communicators".

• Microsoft's glossaries in many languages: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/developr/msdn/newup/glossary/.

• Microsoft Office (97) bugs (WOPR): lists, experiences, bugfixes, etc.: Leonard Woody sells MS Office related products (incl. software to make "saddle stitched" printout from MS Word.) and has an excellent site with lots of advice on http://www.wopr.com + a free weekly on-line newsletter. A list of MS Office 97 related downloads, bug alerts and fixes can be found on http://www.wopr.com/wopr97/office97.htm.

• Tips on Microsoft Word. You can subscribe to its free weekly WordTips newsletter from http://www.VitalNews.com/WordTips/. WordTips is published by Discovery Computing Inc., WY, USA.

• Miller's Magic Number of 7: Read the original article on http://www.well.com/user/smalin/miller.html and judge for yourself the scientific background for "chunking" and the holy 7+/- 2 rule: max. 7+/-2 points (chunks) within one heading if they have to be memorized!

• Nancy Hoft's list of websites, etc. related to web publishing and HTML.

• Niva has a website with "Writing tip of the month", technology tips, dictionaries and styleguides list, a list of links toresources for technical writers. They also have a monthly "electronic journal" covering various aspects of technical writing. The URL (web address) is http://www.niva.com.

• PageMaker information including a pdf-format newsletter, links (and announced soon to come a FAQ) on Worsley Press'website at http:/www.worsleypress.com.

• Peterborough Technical Communication: Website with list of UK public Technical Documentation standards, EU directives related to technical writing, + other useful information for technical writers.

• Plain English: The European Commission Translation Service is encouraging plain English. (Messages that have unclear and complex English are said to have a lot of "fog.")
• The following URL has more details: http://europa.eu.int/comm/sdt/en/ftfog/index.htm.
• They also have an html booklet on style: http://europa.eu.int/comm/sdt/en/ftfog/booklet/index.htm.

• PDFzone: A lot of information about PDFs and PDF-related products on http://www.pdfzone.com. There are also mailing lists, see the list of mailing lists.

• Plain Language Action Network (NPR): General practical guidance to how to write in a user-friendly way at http://www.blm.gov/nhp/NPR/pe_toc.html.

• PRC - Peter Ring Consultants, Denmark. Specialists in how to make user-friendlymanuals . R&D on quality measurements and certification.Working on standardisation in collaboration with Danish Standard and TÜV.

Homepage system with full range of servicesoffered, useful links, tipof the month, John Renish's booklist, list of organisations, etc.
E-mail: prc@prc.dk

• Printers tips to DTP people. DO's & DON'Ts On Sending Files To A Printer / ServiceBureau For Output. A very good ressource on http://www.teleplex.net/jr/.

• Product liability: Megan E. McMacken's homepage includes a well written paper with definitions of the terms for product liability, how to write warnings,and a literature list. The legal part mainly reflects US law, but the terms and definitions are internationally usable.

• Quality control & management: The Quality Homepage by Kees de Bondt, the Netherlands. Links galore to quality control and quality management related subjects, incl. technical writing.

• Questionnaires in Usability Engineering -- A List of Frequently Asked Questions. Compiled by: Jurek Kirakowski, Human Factors Research Group, Cork, Ireland. Lots of useful and sensible information about how to create good questionnaires. http://www.ucc.ie/hfrg/resources/qfaq1.html.
  

• Resources for Technical Writers and Trainers contains tips for technical writers: http://www.fortechnicalcommunicators.com/.

• Resources For Science and Technical Writers contains a large numberof very useful links to other sources.

• Standards, see Peterborough and ISO.

• STC - Society for Technical Communication, USA: http://stc.org/. Basically member information, but includes also further links and references. See also "National and International organisations for technical writers".

• TC Forum: The World-Wide Forum for Technical Communicators (related to the "Forum YYYY" conferences) has a website at http://www.tc-forum.org, edited by Hans Springer. The website includes all the articles of their paper based journal since issue 2-98.

• TC Library: EServer TC Library on http://tc.eserver.org/ is a cooperative library for technical communicators. It contains a large number of useful links mainly to practical oriented articles, etc., on technical communication and related subjects. It is edited by the English Department at Iowa State University.

• Trademarks
• Registration and use of (R) and (TM): The US Patent and Trademarks Office at http://www.uspto.gov/.
• The International Trademark Association web site on http://plaza.interport.net/inta/aboutint.htm.
• The All About Trademarks web site at http://www.ggmark.com/. A helpful and understandable website.

• The Translator 's Home Companion at http://www.lai.com/lai/companion.html. A VERY impressive website withlots of information about translation, incl.links to directories on the www.

• Translation/internationalisation: Go to the International Language Engineering Web site ( http://www.ile.com/ ) and get their free "Accent on Internationalization" brochure (it's also available for download as a PDF file). See also " Machinetranslation".

• TÜV - TÜV Information Technology GmbH (Member of the CUBIS Group). A German test organisation which certifies e.g. manuals in the section Information Design. Head of Usabilty-Lab and array: Martin Riegel. E-mail: m.riegel@tuvit.cubis.de.

• Usability: Orr & Associates Corporation/Usability Management has a good explanation at http://www.usability.com/umi_what.htm and a more in depth article "Optimizing System Usability without Re-Design"at http://www.orrnet.com/abstractopsys.htm .The website has further useful links at http://www.orrnet.com/links.htm.

• Webmaster resources: Lots of useful info + a newsletter on http://www.webmaster-resources.com.

• Winhelp. George Byrnes' website on how to make Winhelp files (FAQ, etc.), download free software, references to paid software, etc. A very useful website if you want to make Winhelp files. Please note, that this URL address of 23 August 1997 is temporary: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/6793/helpsurv.htm. See also the WINHLP-L mailing list and the page about on-line help systems.

• Worst technical writing : Grotesque examples on bad technical writing on COREComm's Worst-Technical-Writing- Sample-of-the-Month Contest^TM website.

• Writers Write Inc.'s website at http://www.writerswrite.com/technical/ contains a lot of useful linksfor technical writers, incl. jobs.

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