One of my regular clients is GdP Software, a Dutch-based company. They use me for localisation of web text and emails, and for documenting products such as watchFTP, a powerful tool for monitoring FTP directories and processing any uploaded files.

In explaining my work to a translator, Gert (my main contact) neatly summed up what I do…

So the original text was…

blah-dee-blah-dee-blah-blah-dee-blah-dee-blah-blah-dee-blah-dee-blah-bl a-dee-blah-dee-blah-blah-dee-blah-dee-blah-blah-dee-blah-dee-blah-blah- dee-blah-dee-blah-blah-dee-blah-dee-blah-blah-dee-blah-dee-blah-blah-di e-blah-dee-blah-blah-dee-blah-dee-blah-blah-dee-blah-dee-blah-blah-dee- blah-dee-blah-blah-dee-blah-dee-blah-blah-dee-blah-dee-blah-

After DD’s changes it is…

To do blah-dee-blahh:

1. Blah-dee-blah blah blah

2. Blah blah blah

(With several spelling errors corrected.)

He was of course, correct.

I’ll cheerfully admit that I don’t do anything special, but what I do do, I do very quickly indeed, and from the user’s point-of-view. This makes it more cost effective to use me, than to lock some poor coder in a room with a Help Authoring Tool – and I’ve yet to see a HAT that’s both user-friendly and powerful - and a copy of Technical Writing for Dummies.

EDIT: When I told Gert about  this blog post, he said I could quote him on the following:

Working with Documentation Doctor is a pleasure, he works quickly and for a reasonable fee. If you have any doubts or questions, feel free to contact me: gert at watchftp.com

Some people make a career of house doctoring. I’m doing the same with technical documentation.

There’s this UK TV show where a brilliant Californian house doctor hurtles around a property, improving its value. She doesn’t add much to the house - perhaps a coat of paint here, a plant pot there - but she does transform its presentation. Suddenly, it’s worth a good dollop of extra cash.

That’s what I do with documentation. I don’t pretend to add content, just value.

Modern software developers already have a detailed functional spec, or draft manual. You don’t need a technical author underfoot, spending billable days investigating the product and asking questions!

What you do need is somebody to rewrite, reorganize and reformat your existing content, turning it into professionally presented user-friendly documentation. That’s what I do, and that’s why I call myself the Documentation Doctor.