About me

e-mail jean@jeanweber.com

Technical editor and writer with over 40 years of editing experience; now retired from paid work.

From 1988 to 2006 I had been contracting and consulting, including documentation team leading for CSA and ISSC Australia (1993-1995). From 1996 much of my work involved online help systems and website development.

In 2003 I became involved with the OpenOffice.org (OOo) community, in the role of “lead editor” for a group of volunteers then called OOoAuthors, who were writing user guides for OOo. I was Co-lead of the Documentation Project at OpenOffice.org for several years. In 2012 I left OOo and joined the LibreOffice Documentation team. For many years I published printed versions of the OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice user guides through Friends of OpenDocument Inc., a volunteer organisation.

Past clients have included Dexion (Australia) Pty Ltd, IBM Global Services Australia, NCR Australia, Studioserv (New York), Lexmark International (Australia), Advanced Power Pty Ltd, and a variety of smaller software development companies in the Sydney area.

My work included:

• Analysis, planning and estimating of writing and editing projects
• Writing and editing hardware and software user manuals, tutorials and online help
• Editing web pages and scientific, technical and engineering material
• Indexing
• Training in technical and scientific editing

My earlier work was as a scientific editor and information officer with CSIRO and the Australian Institute of Marine Science.

I have taught short courses in writing and editing to IBM, Fujitsu and CSIRO staff; conducted workshops in editing and the use of Microsoft Word for groups including the Society of Editors; and lectured in technical writing and editing at several Sydney-area universities (graduate and undergraduate level).

I have written or contributed to numerous books. See this page for a list of them.

I designed and maintain several websites in addition to this one, including one (Avalook) for travellers to Australia, one for users of LibreOffice.

In the past I was active in the Australia Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication and the Australian Society for Technical Communication.

Personal Details

Born Washington DC, USA; resident of Australia since 1974; Australian citizen since 1981.

Education

BSc (Hons), Botany, University of Maryland, USA
MSc, Plant Ecology, University of Maryland, USA

Publications

Last updated 3 October 2022.