I’d Rather Be Writing – Tom Johnson

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Length: 35 min.

ComponentOne recently released Doc-To-Help 2009, which introduces a complete redesign of their user interface. In this podcast, I talk with Nicky Bleiel, who works for ComponentOne, in depth about Doc-To-Help. Nicky has been a technical communicator for fourteen years and is now a director at large for the STC. I’ve met Nicky several times at Doc Train and STC conferences, and have interviewed her for other podcasts about web 2.0 and the STC.

This podcast is sponsored by ComponentOne, the makers of Doc-To-Help . It’s one of my first sponsored podcasts, but even though it’s sponsored, I’ve tried to keep my same interviewing style.

In this podcast, we focus exclusively on Doc-To-Help. Specifically, we talk about the following:

• Help outputs available from Doc-To-Help
• Flexibility in choosing your authoring editor
• Doc-To-Help’s new ribbon-based interface
• Team authoring in Doc-To-Help, including file check-in and check-out
• Dynamic help controls available
• A sandcastle plugin for SDK and API writers
• The appeal of the technical communication field

We also cover a few other topics, such as Doc-To-Help’s approach to DITA and Web 2.0.

To contact Nicky, send her an email at NickyB@componentone.com. Also, feel free to drop me a line at tom@idratherbewriting.com.

Tags: api, component one, componentone, DITA, doc-to-help, dynamic help, nicky bleiel, sandcastle, sdk, sponsored podcast, STC, Web 2.0

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