Input and output formats

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word or MS Word (often called Word) is a graphical word processing program that users can type with. It is made by the computer company Microsoft. Its purpose is to allow users to type and save documents.

Similar to other word processors, it has helpful tools to make documents.

Microsoft Word is a part of Microsoft Office, but can also be bought separately.

LaTeX

LaTeX is a software system for document preparation. When writing, the writer uses plain text as opposed to the formatted text found in “What You See Is What You Get” word processors like Microsoft Word, LibreOffice Writer and Apple Pages. The writer uses markup tagging conventions to define the general structure of a document (such as an article, a book, and a letter), to stylise text throughout a document (such as bold and italics), and to add citations and cross-references. A TeX distribution such as TeX Live or MiKTeX is used to produce an output file (such as PDF or DVI) suitable for printing or digital distribution.

LaTeX is widely used in academia for the communication and publication of scientific documents in many fields, including mathematics, statistics, computer science, engineering, physics, economics, linguistics, quantitative psychology, philosophy, and political science.

HTML

HTML stands for “Hypertext Markup Language.” HTML is the language used to create webpages. “Hypertext” refers to the hyperlinks that an HTML page may contain. “Markup language” refers to the way tags are used to define the page layout and elements within the page.

XML (Adobe Frame maker, DITA, MadCap Flare)

Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language that defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable.

The design goals of XML emphasize simplicity, generality, and usability across the Internet. It is a textual data format with strong support via Unicode for different human languages. Although the design of XML focuses on documents, the language is widely used for the representation of arbitrary data structures such as those used in web services.

JSON (API)

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is an open standard file format and data interchange format that uses human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs and arrays (or other serializable values). It is a very common data format, with a diverse range of applications, one example being web applications that communicate with a server.

JSON is a language-independent data format. It was derived from JavaScript, but many modern programming languages include code to generate and parse JSON-format data.

Doxygen, Javadoc, Pydoc

Doxygen is a documentation generator and static analysis tool for software source trees. When used as a documentation generator, Doxygen extracts information from specially-formatted comments within the code. When used for analysis, Doxygen uses its parse tree to generate diagrams and charts of the code structure. Doxygen can cross reference documentation and code, so that the reader of a document can easily refer to the actual code.

Javadoc is a documentation generator created by Sun Microsystems for the Java language (now owned by Oracle Corporation) for generating API documentation in HTML format from Java source code. The HTML format is used for adding the convenience of being able to hyperlink related documents together.

Pydoc is the standard documentation module for the programming language Python. Similar to the functionality of Perldoc within Perl and Javadoc within Java, Pydoc allows Python programmers to access Python’s documentation help files, generate text and HTML pages with documentation specifics, and find the appropriate module for a particular task.

Markdown

Markdown is a lightweight markup language for creating formatted text using a plain-text editor. John Gruber and Aaron Swartz created Markdown in 2004 as a markup language that is appealing to human readers in its source code form. Markdown is widely used in blogging, instant messaging, online forums, collaborative software, documentation pages, and readme files.

PDF

Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1993 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. Based on the PostScript language, each PDF file encapsulates a complete description of a fixed-layout flat document, including the text, fonts, vector graphics, raster images and other information needed to display it.

PDF files may contain a variety of content besides flat text and graphics including logical structuring elements, interactive elements such as annotations and form-fields, layers, rich media (including video content), and three-dimensional objects using U3D or PRC, and various other data formats. The PDF specification is also provided for encryption and digital signatures, file attachments, and metadata to enable workflows requiring these features.

HTML5, WebHelp

Webhelp is a chunked HTML output format in the DocBook xslt stylesheets that was introduced in version 1.76.1. The documentation for web help also provides an example of web help and is a part of the DocBook xsl distribution.

Help (.chm - Windows)

Microsoft Compiled HTML Help is a Microsoft proprietary online help format, consisting of a collection of HTML pages, an index and other navigation tools. The files are compressed and deployed in a binary format with the extension .CHM, for Compiled HTML. The format is often used for software documentation.

Tooltip

The tooltip, also known as infotip or hint, is a common graphical user interface element in which, when hovering over a screen element or component, a text box displays information about that element (such as a description of a button’s function, or what an abbreviation stands for). The tooltip is displayed continuously as long as the user hovers over the element.

On desktop, it is used in conjunction with a cursor, usually a pointer, whereby the tooltip appears when a user hovers the pointer over an item without clicking it.

Wiki

Simple editing is one of the major benefits of using a wiki. Users can edit pages without knowing HTML, and still use many formatting features of HTML. Most wikis define a set of formatting rules to convert plain text into HTML. Some wikis also allow some HTML “tags” within a page. (Some wikis use raw HTML instead of special formatting rules.)

Excel

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet developed by Microsoft for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Excel forms part of the Microsoft Office suite of software.

Microsoft Excel has the basic features of all spreadsheets, using a grid of cells arranged in numbered rows and letter-named columns to organize data manipulations like arithmetic operations. It has a battery of supplied functions to answer statistical, engineering, and financial needs. In addition, it can display such data as line graphs, histograms and charts, and with a very limited three-dimensional graphical display. It allows sectioning of data to view its dependencies on various factors for different perspectives (using pivot tables and the scenario manager). A PivotTable is a powerful tool that can save time when it comes to data analysis.

Graphical tools

Graphical tools can provide comprehensive and easily understandable ways to present results of statistical analyses, particularly when a large amount of data is involved.

CAT tools

The “CAT” in CAT tool stands for “Computer Aided Translation” or “Computer Assisted Translation” but, it doesn’t mean that a computer is actually completing the translation for you. CAT tools are different than “machine translation” – they assist a human translator in doing their work more quickly and in managing their translation projects. CAT tools typically contain a translation memory, which stores previous source and target translations for easy reference while working. Term bases are also an integral part of translation tools, giving translators the ability to develop their own bilingual glossaries in their subject areas.