This article describes my involvement with the production of a user manual, how I ended up taking on some work more typically done by a specialist technical author, and how I came to realise that suitable documentation tools allow a software program to be properly integrated with its documentation.
The original version of the article appeared in Overload, a magazine for software professionals. Overload's production editor offered some excellent feedback, and noted that it was interesting, as a professional author, to hear a software developer's viewpoint.
Following this email exchange, I decided to submit the article to Communicator, the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators' journal.
It was an education working with the Communicator team. They liked the article, but did suggest a few revisions for their readership. I've never been quite so thoroughly edited!
Here, then are both versions:
You might also be interested in the differences between the two versions. Let me know which you prefer!