Link: Document Library

Overview

Each of my lessons begins with a document. I create documents for the sake of learning processes, refining them, and referencing them in the future. There is a small step between a document and a blog, presentation, e-book, article, or script. My documents always serve the purpose of being destined for something more than a document. 

This document serves the purpose of defining how to handle creating and hosting documentation. Documents are the base design of every digital creation I conjure. They define my intent, the steps to get there, and the result. This document is no different; it defines my intent of documentation in the context of this website, the steps (or processes) I use to get a result, and the expected result.

Purposes 

I have three primary purposes and potential purposes for this document. They are as follows:

Processes 

Firstly, this document tells me the processes I use to create, maintain, and share documents on my website. While I have a basic idea of what I want to accomplish, the processes I use get fine-tuned as I put the text on paper. Additionally, by having documented processes, I can continually improve those processes in a very controlled manner.

Blog 

A potential use case for this document is to define the core information that could become a blog post. Depending on how long I stay interested in building my website, it’s possible that it gains a “Blog” section. A well-crafted document makes a great base for a blog post.

Website Content

Another purpose of this document is to provide content for the parent “Documentation” tab of this website. This document need not be referenced for the information in this document. It’s more like this document is the design for the parent documentation tab of the website.

Document Creation

Here are concepts used for my documents:

Compatibility

Documentation is created in Microsoft Word. This is done to maximize compatibility with the most widely used word processor in the world. Now this gets a little bit trickier when we start taking into consideration Microsoft Word on the web. The web version of Microsoft Word lacks some basic features, such as compatibility with cover sheets. Those features are avoided in production documentation to maintain compatibility with the Microsoft ecosystem.

Formatting

Documents use the native headers in Microsoft Word for differentiating sections and subsections. This is done to maintain compatibility with the Table of Contents, and the Navigation features of the application.

Table of Contents (TOC)

My documents include a table of contents. I often export documentation to PDF, export to e-readers, and even occasionally print my documents. All these scenarios benefit by having a table of contents available for navigation.

In the case of website content, I won’t include a table of contents. The website’s navigation menu serves the purpose of the table of contents.

Background

I like to use a solid color for the background of my documents. It’s built into the Microsoft Word web interface as a feature and just makes my documents more interesting to me. This is a feature that’s easily changed if I need to provide a document in a business setting.