HyperSTE – Overview

HyperSTE – Tailored to Your Controlled Language Needs
It is important to use clear and consistent terminology throughout all types of documents; however, for technical English you may opt to use stricter rules than with other types of documentation. Based on the writing rules of the Simplified Technical English specification, HyperSTE’s profile manager allows you to select different rules for various types of documentation: apply up to 57 writing rules for technical content, but be more flexible with other types of documentation. In addition, HyperSTE allows you to use up to 3 dictionaries at the same time. In addition to the corporate technical dictionary, you can add dictionaries that are product or project specific.

HyperSTE – Interactive Feedback
HyperSTE is integrated in the most common authoring tools, including:

• Arbortext (Epic) Editor
• Adobe FrameMaker
• Microsoft Word
• JustSystems XMetal and XMAX
• Adobe InDesign

In addition, HyperSTE Generic is desktop version (stand-alone), which you can use to check PDF and text files.

HyperSTE provides interactive feedback during the writing process, and flags (potential) errors using colors, while giving the writer useful feedback in the form of suggestions, corrections, examples and explanations. To support writers whose native language is different from English, HyperSTE’s feedback is also available in other languages than English, including German, French, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese.

HyperSTE – Reports for Quality Measurement
With HyperSTE’s batch checking function, editors can create reports on single or multiple files and generate metrics that give the editor full insight in the compliance level of a (range of) document(s), making the quality of documentation measurable! This function can save up to 30% of a document’s cycle time, reducing your time to market.

HyperSTE – Efficient Conversion of Existing (Legacy) Documentation
No one has the time or money to rewrite existing documentation to comply with the corporate terminology and style guide rules. HyperSTE, however, allows this process to be less tedious: the report will give insight into where the biggest problems are. Based on these problems, you can create various profiles (eg. start with terminology, and gradually add more rules based on where the biggest problems are) which allows for a more efficient conversion rather than having to rewrite everything over again.

HyperSTE – Based on International Writing Standard: Simplified Technical English
There are many guidelines or corporate style guides available when you decide to implement a controlled language for your documentation. Choosing the Simplified Technical English specification (ASD-STE100) as a basis, however, offers many benefits:

• Simplified Technical English is derived from an aerospace and defense standard (ASD-STE100), which applies to almost all standards that we know today, as these industries are subject to the highest levels of quality and safety and involve technology from most industries.  
• Simplified Technical English is a well established international standard (in use since 1986), as it was designed by companies worldwide to make technical text easy to understand by both native and non-native English speakers. The STE specification therefore, unlike other standards, looks at the English language from a linguistic point of view, and results in clear and unambiguous English with the key principle: one word = one meaning. 
• Because Simplified Technical English is based on an aerospace and defense standard, it is strict by nature with 57 writing rules and a limited vocabulary of approx. 900 approved words and approx. 2,000 non-approved words with assigned synonyms. This is good news for companies in any industry, as you can use a well-maintained standard and will not have to 'reinvent the wheel'. Instead, you can be more flexible, according to your requirements.

HyperSTE – Features

General

• Checks for terminology, grammar, style and spelling. Depending on which editing tool you use, checking can take place on element, paragraph, page, page-range or document basis.
• Based on the Simplified Technical English specification, but rules can be configured to customer-specific needs.
• Supports multiple dictionaries.
• HyperSTE's Profile Manager allows you to create, save and load different profiles for different types of documents.
• Automatically differentiates different types of text (eg, procedural vs. descriptive).
• Feedback and reports available in multiple languages, including German, French, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese.
• Available as fixed licenses as well as concurrent licenses.

Interactive Checking

• Integrated into various authoring tools, including Arbortext (Epic) Editor, Adobe FrameMaker, Microsoft Word, JustSystems XMetal.
• Available as a stand-alone version for PDF files.
• Flags issues using colors (each color represents a different issue).
• Gives feedback in the form of corrections, suggestions, and explanations.
• Automatically rechecks sentence after correction has been made.
• Export interactive feedback to HTML to share feedback.
• Automatic correction of terminology through ‘replace all’ feature.
• Automatic conversion of units of measurement.
• Automatic conversion of American English to British English, and visa versa.

Reporting

• Check one or multiple files.
• View results in Microsoft Excel or XML.
• Compliance rating.
• Shows metrics per enabled rule, including frequency and context.
• Create management reports.

Terminology Management

• Update and maintain dictionaries with new terminology using HyperSTE DMT (Dictionary Maintenance Tool).
• HyperSTE DMT links to Terminology and Translation Memory systems, including MultiTerm.
• HyperSTE DMT allows easy imports from various types of files.

Sentence Management

• Reuse approved sentences with HyperSTE's sentence database.

HyperSTE - Versions

HyperSTE - ASD-STE100 version
HyperSTE ASD-STE100 is the version specifically designed for ASD-STE100 compliance. This version of HyperSTE includes all writing rules and features, including full reporting functionality and the ability to export interactive feedback to HTML in order to share the feedback with your colleagues or suppliers.

HyperSTE - Controlled Language version
HyperSTE Controlled Language (CL) is generally regarded as a “less strict” version of HyperSTE in comparison with the ASD-STE100 version. It does include all features such as reporting and the ability to export interactive feedback to HTML, but less writing rules are enabled to gain more flexibility. If you are not an aerospace or defense companies, or in case you do not have an ASD-STE100 requirement, HyperSTE Controlled Language is for you.

HyperSTE - BASIC version
HyperSTE BASIC is the light version of HyperSTE. A subset of rules is available to check compliance with the most important rules of controlled language such as standardized terminology. This makes HyperSTE BASIC very suitable for writers who have a minimum requirement for compliance writing, such as engineers, but also for marketing documentation. Features like reporting and export of interactive feedback to HTML are disabled in this version.

Overview HyperSTE versions

Screenshots of HyperSTE

(Click a screenshot for a detailed image)

HyperSTE: available as a plug-in for Epic, FrameMaker, Word and XMetal.
Available as a stand-alone checker (HyperSTE Generic) for PDF and text files.

Profile management: apply different sets of rules
to different parts or types of documents.

Quality Control/Quality Assurance:
Extensive reports for validation purposes.

Exports interactive feedback to HTML:
allow suppliers and contractors to access HyperSTE feedback interactively.