Technical communicators use a variety of tools to create usable information. Often referred to as a "tool set", there is no defined list of tools that are used by all technical writers. However, broad categories of tools are used by most technical writers and communicators. Many tools have independent forums that provide varying levels of support or assistance.
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There are a variety of word processors available, each with advantages and disadvantages. The most common are Framemaker by Adobe Systems, and Word by Microsoft.
LibreOffice Writer is the freely available Open Source alternative that works on most popular operating systems (Windows, Linux, Mac) and is part of the LibreOffice suite of programs.
AbiWord is also Open Source and is a very fast and light alternative word processor.
The latest trend in online education is to connect tutors and students, from across the world, with interactive software. authorLIVE is one such tutoring environment to provide solutions for the challenges of distance learning. Other options include IBIS, Blackboard, and WebCT.
There is an old cliché: "A picture is worth a thousand words". This holds true for technical communication. Many document sets contain large numbers of screen captures, black-box diagrams, and other explanatory pictures to assist the reader in understanding a concept or action. The most commonly used programs are industry leader Corel Photo XI, Photoshop by Adobe Systems, and GIMP.
For creating vector graphics Inkscape provides more functionality and control than the other programs.
Not all projects require a high level of presentation quality, especially projects designed for a company's internal use only. When a project is to be presented to external audiences, presentation becomes more important. Desktop publishing software can provide a document set with a higher quality presentation than a word processor.
Lightweight text editors are very useful tools. While many word processors can be used to edit text, specialised text editors generally have features for handling text that word processors don't have. Additionally, files saved from a word processing program will often have added data and thus will not work if the file is to be loaded into an external program for processing.
Common text editors are Notepad by Microsoft, the Open Source Notepad++ and cross-platform editors such as vim or Emacs.
TextEdit is included in the utilities suite of Mac OS X. Other text editors used for the Macintosh platform are BBEdit, which is a paid-product, and its lighter weight freeware sibling, TextWrangler, both from Bare Bones Software.
Most users of Linux or Unix machines come down on one side of the Emacs vs. vi debate as to their favourite choice of text editor.
For Haiku machines the default Pe (short for Programmers editor) is simple and powerful and usually provides all the necessary functionality in one program, thus fitting with the Haiku philosophy.
Any text editor can be used as an HTML editor, but specialised HTML editors generally include features for manipulating HTML that text editors don't include. Many word processors can save information as HTML, but the quality of HTML output is often not to W3C standards. The most common HTML editors are HTML-Kit, Homesite/Dreamweaver, Adobe GoLive, and Namo.
Documents written with DocBook can be made to output to standards compliant XHTML.
XML editors are applied for creating structured documents in the XML format. XML content can be edited as plain text, while some XML editors look like word processors and provide WYSIWYG editing of structured content. The most commonly used XML editors are Arbortext, Oxygen, Syntext Serna, XMLmind, and XMetaL.[1][2]
The most common format for writing technical documentation is using the DocBook XML system. This is a very simple yet powerful language which can be used to create a wide variety of popular formats PDF, HTML, CHM, ePub, JavaDoc, etc., and is used by O'Reilly Media for some of their popular computing textbooks.
Although various outputs have been historically popular, the overall trend in help documentation output format is towards online help. There are many software packages designed for producing Microsoft CHM help files:
More generally though in recent years there has been a move away from CHM files towards XML based help systems or XHTML WebHelp type layouts which can be displayed in any standards compliant web browser.
Technical communicators often seek the advice and recommendations of their peers through online forums. These can include, but are not limited to, email lists, wiki pages, and internet forums or discussion boards. The forums provide information on technical communication standards and job prospects, as well as several other topics.
There are many other tools that technical communicators find useful. Dictionaries are one of the most useful tools any writer can have. A list of online dictionaries is available. For more information on available tools refer to the Technical communication tools category.