Technical Writers aren’t just writers – we often have responsibilities like reporting, document management, document governance, etc. Which is why you need more than the tool you author with.
Here’s the list of tools I’ve found myself using in almost every job I’ve had. Are there better tools than these? Maybe. But I focus on using tools supported by my corporate environment, which 9 times out of 10 means it needs to play nicely with Microsoft proecuts.
- CoPilot – I’ve started using this more and more. See Examples of How I use AI.
- Excel: if you’re analyzing your document usage, or generating reports, Excel is hard to beat, especially since SharePoint can directly export the information in a view to Excel.
- Notepad++: I’ve used this at just about every job I have, even when Word is my authoring tool.
- OneNote: I always have notebook going for both project and reference information. Reference information includes common formulas I use, tips/tricks, excellent articles I’ve come across, etc. Because of my current company’s restrictions on loading third party software (and because both Microsoft To Do and Planner are half baked), I’m also using it for task management, which has been surprisingly effective.
- Power BI: I used this years ago, and have recently come back to it. It’s an incredibly powerful visualization tool that’s great for showing execs exactly what you’re doing and why it matters.
- Power Automate: I use this to automated repetitive tasks, and I’ve also used it to build complex approval and reminder systems. For example, we have to record all our work in a SharePoint list – I’ve created a flow that with one click, creates a project folder on my computer and a page in a OneNote notebook.
- PowerShell: I’ve only recently started using this to extract information from SharePoint and documents. I tell CoPilot what I want to do (extract site usage metrics from SharePoint, or pull the revision date out of every document in a folder), it writes me a script, I run it, and VOILA!
- Snagit: the classic screenshot creator and editor. I do wish there was a less bloated tool, but it does everything I need and its company approved.
- VBA: I have macros for everything. Want to make all tables 100% wide? Macro. Want to add a draft stamp? Macro. Got a list in URLs in Excel you want to convert to hyperlinks? Macro. I used to have to figure out how to make these by searching the interwebs, but now I just tell CoPilot what I want and BOOM.
- VS Code: I currently use this because I can’t add any plugins into Notepad++, and it’s also a great tool when you’re in a Docs as Code environment