My dual lives as a working technical writer on federal and commercial projects and writing for technology publications and websites doesn’t put me more at odds with things then with writing about Microsoft Office and Office productivity applications in general. I’ve long had my disagreements with Microsoft Office –especially from the implementation side – and have seen a growing part of my job helping to get teams working productively, developing and managing documents using this ubiquitous Office suite.

In job interviews, I try to frame this growing part of my job as making Microsoft Office work. On the other hand, I’ve been a technical reviewer for some Microsoft Office books (in a past life) and written a bit about Microsoft Office for some publications. The third party publishing industry doesn’t always have a boots on the ground mentality when their readers need it. While I am a bit late writing about it, the launch of the Google Apps Marketplace has the potential to be a real game changer for Office suites and not just Google Apps.

Some notable applications for technical writers include:

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