Confluence: Software that Makes Technical Writing Easy for Everyone
Confluence is the simplest and most powerful platform for all of your technical writing needs.
Give your team one place to collaboratively plan, author, track changes, organize and structure, restrict editing, and publish your technical documentation.
Fast, Rich Authoring
Make technical writing easy for everyone with Confluence's rich-text editor. Create rich technical documentation complete with links, images, media, and more.
Watch Confluence do the work for you with Autocomplete, Autoformatting, Autoconvert, and shortcuts for everything.
Execute Your Content Strategy
Use Confluence throughout the entire technical writing process.
Plan, draft, provide feedback and publish your technical documentation - all in Confluence.
Single Source Publishing
Publish your technical writing in the format of your choice.
Export to PDF, Word, DocBook XML or HTML. Import Word docs, and publish from DITA XML and Adobe FrameMaker with third-party tools.
Structured Technical Writing
Organize documentation in Spaces each with its own page hierarchy that you can move and reorder at any time.
Create libraries of content – standard images, copyright statements, glossary items – for re-use across pages and spaces.
Control Who Sees Your Documentation
With the right permissions, anyone can create and view your technical writing content – it's up to you.
Permissions at the Global, Space, and Page level give you the flexibility to decide exactly who can view and edit content.
Complete Version Control
Page and Space permissions let you choose who can view, edit, and comment on your drafts.
Every edit is saved as a new version so you can easily compare changes and revert to a previous version.
Quick, Intelligent Search
Start typing and watch Confluence suggest pages, blogs, files, and people.
Quick Navigation and Search makes sure you find the documentation that you're looking for, fast.
Confluence Mobile
Make your technical writing accessible by everyone, from anywhere.
Allow readers to quickly browse your documentation in Confluence or use search to find what they're looking for, all from their mobile phone.
Customize with Add-ons
Customize Confluence to fit your technical writing needs with these popular add-ons from the Atlassian Marketplace:
Scroll Versions turns Confluence into a full-fledged technical writing solution. Manage concurrent versions of your documentation within a single Confluence space. Increase content-reuse and take advantage of context-sensitive help features... and one more thing: Scroll Versions also adds support for duplicate page titles and permalinks to Confluence.
Scroll Office helps you to create and deliver great Microsoft Office documentation, a must for technical writers everywhere. Write your documents in Confluence, collaborate with your team, then generate properly-formatted customized Word documents to store, exchange and print information.
Zen Foundation gives your technical documentation the professional look it deserves, seamlessly branded to match your existing web sites. Used by Atlassian, Zen makes Confluence beautiful and easy, with intuitive menus, auto page numbering, drag-and-drop master layouts, simplified editing, and drafts & publishing to make your technical writer's life a snap and their documentation look incredible.
What is Technical Writing?
Technical writing is the practice of creating informative and engaging content that details how to use your specific product(s). With Confluence, no matter if you're just starting out or have a large team of technical writers, it's easy to create and implement a successful technical writing strategy for your needs.
What do technical writers do?
Do they write? Yes! And a lot more. At Atlassian, each technical communicator owns and curates a portfolio of product documentation. Their role is to ensure quality, usability, completeness and timeliness. They use and explore the products to understand how they work. They liaise with the savvy developers to document new features and identify areas for improvement in the existing documentation. On occasion, they lend their proofreading expertise to edit various other kinds of written material. Innovation and creativity are part of the day job!
How do I get started as a technical writer?
- Join an Atlassian doc sprint! If one's not happening right now, find an open source doc sprint
- Find some some documentation that needs writing in the company where you work.
- Find a product that's poorly documented, then document it and approach the developer offering your work for a small charge or even free.
How do I set-up a technical documentation site using Confluence
We have full documentation on how you can get your first technical documentation site up using Confluence. Check it it out, and get started today: Technical Documentation
Some resources to help you get started:
A day in the life of a technical writer
Managing updates in your technical writing
Turning your documentation into communication
Tips and Tricks for technical writers
Increasing development in your technical documentation site
Getting feedback on your documentation
Implementing your content strategy
Technical Writing in a Wiki - Content Re-use and Structure