RE: Technical Writing with LaTeX

["Fred Ridder" <docudoc -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

Probably because many technical writers recognize that producing
documents that are accurate, complete, usable, and timely is more
important to the business reasons for documents than producing
"beautiful books". This is particularly true when the technical
information are delivered electronically rather than as printed books.
It's more important to use tools that allow the generation of
navigation and accessibility aids (e.g. hyperlinked ToC and index)
in our deliverables, that facilitate reuse and repurposing of
information, and that don't inhibit the ongoing revision and
expansion of information that is continually evolving. Most of
us don't need tools that are focused on producing a beautiful
but static fossil record of information.

LaTeX may be a wonderful tool for typesetting printed books
like academic titles that get published once. But many technical
writers (particulalry those who document software) need to
produce new editions of documents once or twice a year to
support new releases of their product. (One of my own
information deliverables has been expanded and republished
six times in the last year and a half as more and more features
have been implemented.) What is needed in these cases is
an industrial-strength authoring tool (probably coupled with
content management) rather than a fine typesetting tool.

My opinion only; I don't speak for Intel
Fred Ridder
Intel
Parsippany, NJ