Whether for a white paper, a programming language spec, or a novel: good writing, careful editing, and polished layout are the cornerstone of your communications.
Writing and editing work can take many forms. Depending on your topic, we can help you regardless of where you are in your project: conducting interviews and doing research, writing a first draft, editing in response to your feedback, then bringing your project to its final form. Or we can take your notes or your draft and take it from there. We also work with self-publishers, providing full book-production services.
Editing
Good editing is a big part of what separates good docs from the bad. We take your existing material—even if it is a very rough draft—and edit it for crispness and clarity, from mere grammar fixes all the way to complete rewrites.
Standard editing involves checking grammar, flow, and branding. Technical editing goes further to include such things as verifying code syntax, checking for consistent terminology, verifying links, and general usability in manuals and specifications. Then there is what I like to call “extreme editing,” which is editing that is so extensive that it is basically a rewrite, such as in documents written in another language and then poorly translated into English. [See details about the different types of editing that we offer as well as our style guide.]
Writing
Starting from your rough draft, even if it is extremely rough, we can write your next case study, solution brief, sales guide, or other marketing document. We can also write user manuals, procedure documents, installation guides, white papers, web copy, and more.
WRITING TOOLS:
We will use the tool that you prefer, but typically use MS Word for writing projects. We also use LaTeX, Markdown, and other text-based formats. (Also see Layout Tools below.)
Layout: The finishing touch
Even with the best writing and editing in the world, you must present your work in a way that people will want to read. We can take your document and turn it into a finished masterpiece with indexing, hyperlinking, cover, and full layout services.
Quality layout puts the finishing touches on your document. Bring us your document and we will lay it out into a professional brochure, manual, or book.
- We have 20+ years of layout experience and know how to use the proper styling and tagging techniques that enable document automation, eBook rendering, and more.
- We can start with your work in almost any file format, and can even scan your hard copy document if an electronic version does not exist.
- We can use your illustrations or photographs, or create or source them for you.
- We can use your templates and guidelines, or create a new collateral design for you.
- We can add the index, links, and automation you need for an interactive document.
- We can deliver final files for web or print, and we can help you get them printed.
- We work with professional layout software and provide you with the final production files.
LAYOUT TOOLS:
The tool to use for your document depends on several factors, such as its purpose, length, and maintenance process. We can create your document in InDesign, MS Word, FrameMaker, Affinity Publisher, LaTeX, MD, HTML/XML/CSS, or other text-based formats. (And for your text-based docs, we can set up your GitHub, too.) If you need work done in other tools, let us know.