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Technical Writing – How to Use Microsoft SourceSafe to Control Your Technical Documents

Just like with most things in life, control is an important aspect of technical documentation. Control is even more important if you are working in an office as a part of a writing team. First, you need to make sure that your files are not lost. That’s basic.

And then you need to make sure that the changes to your files are not replicated, or overwritten without your knowledge and permission.

It’s true — Microsoft’s Visual SourceSafe was not created with technical communicators in mind. It was created for engineers writing software source code.

But it is successfully used by technical writers in numerous offices around the world to control documentation.

SourceSafe (SS) is a part of Microsoft’s VisualStudio. It is installed on a server that you can reach through your office LAN (Local Area Network).

SS has two main panels. The one on the LEFT is for creating your Project Folders. The one on the RIGHT is for checking in and out all the files that belong to that project.

CHECK IN and CHECK OUT are the two important functions that technical writers perform as frequently as necessary. Basically, if as a tech writer you know how to check your files in and out of your project folders, that’s all you need to know about SourceSafe.

You can check files in and out by both right-clicking on them and selecting the appropriate option from the pop-up menu, or use the function buttons displayed on SourceSafe’s toolbar. Both work fine.

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Source by Ugur Akinci