Here you’ll find some free technical writing books that will be useful for building your career.

ClickHelp Books

ClickHelp is a developer of a help authoring tool but their team also writes free ebooks that you can download from their website. Their recent books are Technical Writing: Readability and Text Metrics and Types of Technical Documentation. The descriptions and links are below.

Technical Writing: Readability and Text Metrics

The main goal of a technical writer is to create user-friendly documentation. In order to do this, you should figure out the level of knowledge of your target audience on the subject in question. When creating documentation for professionals, you need to really go in-depth. If you are writing for novice users, make sure to cover all the key moments and leave out more complicated stuff. But how to be sure that your documentation will be clear for your target audience? Here is where readability and text metrics step in.

In this ebook we will tell you about:

• Why metrics are important in tech writing.
• How to measure the effectiveness of your documentation.
• Top 5 text metrics to consider for user documentation.
• How to review technical documentation.
• Where to get all the necessary metrics.
• And much more!

Types of Technical Documentation

The main aim of technical writing is to help users achieve their goals by using a product. It’s possible only through clear and easy-to-interpret documentation. That’s why there are so many different types of technical documents. Whether you’re a novice or experienced tech writer, you should know the most popular types of documentation because each of them implies different content, style and so on.

In this ebook we will cover the following topics:

• How to write effective documentation.
• Good and bad technical documentation examples.
• Types of technical documentation by readers and by industry.
• Other popular types of technical documents like API documentation, hardware manual, software documentation, and much more.

More free ebooks are here: ClickHelp Ebooks.

Tech Writing Handbook

This handbook will teach you how to create everything from manuals to work instructions. We’ll help you avoid the most common pitfalls of tech writing, from poor planning to outdated publishing.

If you want more books, I gathered lists in my previous posts:

Top 7 books for Technical Writers

Top 7 Books For Technical Writers [Part 2]

What books did you find helpful? Please, share in the comment box!