Melinda Feucht wrote:
Hello, I'm a writer new to OOo Authors and just wanted to introduce
myself. I am a Seattle-based freelance writer pursuing a career in
technical writing and looking for volunteer opportunities to practice my
skills....
Where do you suggest I start helping out on this User Guide project?
Welcome to the team! Sorry to take so long to get back to you. I've
been busy doing things other than OOoAuthors, and I was hoping that
someone else on the team would write first (they often do).
I've now given you the permissions you need to view and download all
the draft and published chapters on the website, and upload reviewed
copies. We are updating all the guides to the forthcoming V3.2 of OOo,
so please get a copy of the latest developer build of OOoV3.2 from
here: http://download.openoffice.org/next/
Where to start depends on how comfortable you feel about rewriting
chapters. For example, portions of Chapter 7 of the Calc Guide need to
be revised into better, clearer English, as well as being put into our
style, preferred terminology, etc. Doing that would be a great help.
http://www.oooauthors.org/english/userguide3/calc3/cg3_draft/0307CG3-FormulasAndFunctions_JHW_20091106.odt/view
If that's a bit daunting for a first job, scan down the list of
chapters on the Review List (left-hand column of any page, below the
Navigation section) and try to find the chapters in English. There are
several in the Getting Started Guide and the Writer Guide as well as
the Calc Guide. These mostly need checking against V3.2 to see if
we've missed adding or changing anything -- including checking for
screenshots that have changed. Or I can suggest some other chapters in
one of those books to work on.
Do read our style guide and writing guide, and some of the how-tos in
this folder: http://www.oooauthors.org/english/userguide3/res3
And don't be shy about asking questions! Everyone new always has
questions.
--Jean
Co-Lead, Documentation
