Editing and Production

We provide a variety of documentation-related services to support your documentation department. We can edit your documents. We can convert them to another publication tool. We can recreate source files from a PDF. We can create graphics, index your document, and help you prepare for printing or online delivery. Just tell us what you need.

Applications and technologies

• FrameMaker, Word, InDesign
• Illustrator, Photoshop, FireWorks
• Indexes in FrameMaker, Word, online
• HTML, CSS, JS, XML, Markdown
• Structured FrameMaker, DITA
• Flare, RoboHTML
• Camtasia, Captivate, Media Encoder
• CMS platforms, including Confluence, WordPress, MediaWiki
• And many more!

Developmental and copy editing

Maybe you don’t need a writer. Maybe what you really need is an editor. Our editors provide many different levels of editing, from developmental editing to copy editing to proofreading. If you have a release crunch coming, or maybe just a new writer that needs editing, we can help.

What is the difference between a copy edit and a developmental edit? A copy edit is usually performed at the end of a writing project, in preparation for publication. It’s a check for typos, grammatical errors, small formatting errors, and so on.

A developmental edit typically happens relatively early in the project, after the outline is complete and likely after the first draft of 30 to 50% of the content. The developmental edit focuses on:

• Document organization and whether it makes sense given the audience of the document and its intended use
• Presentation style of the material
• Effectiveness and consistency in the use of graphical or formatting elements to present the material
• Adherence to your company’s style guidelines

We assemble a team with the right background and skill level to edit your document.

Documentation template design and construction

At the heart of every professional-looking document is a documentation template. A template is a document blueprint created in the publication tool of your choice. It defines the structure and appearance of your documents. The template’s goal is to help ensure that multiple writers can produce documents with a consistent appearance, allowing the writers to concentrate on content rather than worrying about how documents should look.

Our document templates contain:

• Paragraph format definitions
• Font style definitions
• Table format specifications
• Rules for creating graphics
• Cross-reference entry styles
• Headers, footers, and other page features
• Front and back matter styles (TOC, index, etc.)

Our templates contain all of the definitions you need to create a title page, table of contents, chapter files, index, and any other section that require special formats.

We produce templates in many publication tools; FrameMaker and Word are the most requested tools.

Graphics, charts, and presentations

Our staff of graphic artists can create graphics, charts, or presentations for your documentation. From line drawings to product images, they produce graphics that meet your size, format, and output requirements. Our graphic artists can also help your writers create or update graphics.

Our writing staff always has access to our graphic artists on staff. By using our graphic artists, we can save you money—why have a writer create a graphic when a graphic artist can do it faster and better?

Document conversion

Converting documents from one publication tool to another, or from hard copy to online, can be a time-consuming task. Our production specialists are skilled at document conversion. Our staff understands the ins and outs of converting documents. We have converted hundreds of thousands of pages in the past and we can help you convert your documents, too.

We make sure that the resulting document fits the style guidelines of your organization and that you can easily maintain it going forward. If that means recreating all the graphics, tables, cross-references, and index entries, that’s what we do. We go far beyond what automatic conversion processes can do.

Conversion is much more that just moving a document from one tool to another. Sometimes our clients have a PDF or hard copy of a document, but can’t locate the source file. Sometimes they inherit a document in a publication tool that no one at their company knows and need it in a usable format. No problem. We can move a document into the publication tool you need it in, such as Word to FrameMaker, PowerPoint to InDesign, and whatever to HTML or XML. We are fast and accurate.

Publication preparation management

Don’t know how to deal with your print vendor, or just don’t have time? Do you need someone to make sure the print vendor is doing the right thing? Do you need someone to check the proofs? We can help you deal with print vendors. We understand their language and their needs.

We can also help you prepare and submit your documentation files into your corporate CMS system. We can help validate your online documentation and check for broken links.