Alternatives to PDF in Technical Documentation

BISSA Corinne, BORDELAIS Anthony, HERIBI Kenz

Paris Cité University, July 2022

Abstract

Technical documentation has become an outstanding resource in the IT industry and the last decades have witnessed a boom of high-performance technical authoring tools.
Despite the multitude of innovative technical writing tools, it has been observed that the dominant output format remains the PDF file, invented in the 1990s.
In the sight of this sluggishness as far as innovative end-user technical documentation is concerned, questions arise: Why has the PDF output survived for so long and what justifies its supremacy over other formats? Another question is, can disruptive innovations be implemented on end-user technical documentation so as to bring about more sophisticated or user-centered output formats?
By discussing with subject matter experts, we are seeking answers to these questions. We are also seeking to explore to what extent modern technologies like virtual reality, artificial intelligence devices among other alternative formats are applicable to end-user technical documentation.

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Why do technical writers have to justify their existence?

Louise AGERON, Tanguy CACHIN, Marina FERREOL

Paris Diderot, July 15th, 2019

Abstract

With the way new technologies are evolving nowadays, technical writers appear to play an important role. Their mission is to help users understand and use a new product or software. They create content that is easy to understand to all and adapt their discourses depending on whom they are addressing their message. We noticed that technical writers, however, still struggled to justify and explain their existence. We wondered whether the profession was widely known, and realized that it was not. We then retracted a brief overview of the profession and realized that being a technical writer had many definitions to it, and the job associated with the terms were broad and different, which reinforces the identity and existence crisis. We also wondered how technical writers were seen by their colleagues, and we found out that they were not seen as a priority by many, probably because of the influence of the old workflow system where technical writers were placed last.

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What are the Stakes and Difficulties of Working with Experts?

Olympe Lebon, Althéa Geneix, Johan Lefebvre

Paris Diderot University, September 15th 2020

Abstract

A technical writer has a key role within a company. He works with people with various functions. He’s asking developers for advice and feedback to build the user guide of their product. He’s connected and dealing with every part of the team: developers, testers, managers, product experts, etc. to produce documentation that is as clear as possible for the user, and depending on the product, the user’s life can depend on his work. Most of the time, this interaction is a very rich and fulfilling experience.
But how to find the right place between the different services of a company? Communicating with developers is not always easy: they often don’t have time to spend with a technical writer. Receiving feedback from testers can be troublesome, sometimes you don’t get information unless asking clearly for it. Many uninformed people think that being a technical writer is just writing sentences and that anyone can do it. It happens sometimes that even people in their own team don’t recognize the work and the importance of the technical writer. This article explores the difficulties a technical writer can encounter when working with experts.

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