Chapter 7. Writing for an International Audience

More and more business transactions and communications occur over the World Wide Web, which is an international medium. Writing documentation that can be easily translated into other languages and delivered to audiences in other countries is becoming a mandate for the computer industry. Fortunately, the guidelines that you need to follow when writing for an international audience also apply to good technical writing in general. These guidelines can help you avoid producing documentation that is inadvertently confusing or offensive.

Internationalization involves creating a “generic” document that can be used in many cultures or easily translated into many languages. Localization involves converting ...

Get Read Me First!: A Style Guide for the Computer Industry, Second Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.