I would agree with Andy.

I have never seen LaTeX being used outside of academia.  Microsoft Word is very common,  It actually has a pretty sophisticated equation editor built in, if that's what you need.  For drawing pretty diagrams, Microsoft Visio is better - and the diagrams can be imported into Word.  But Visio is an add-on to Office, so it's an extra cost.

For specialist things (e.g. UML diagrams), you're usually better off using the relevant tools, then exporting the diagrams as pictures, and importing them into your Word document.  Use lossless formats, such as PNG, not JPEG, if at all possible.

LibreOffice is a free alternative to Microsoft Office.  It can handle Office file formats, but the formatting can sometimes suffer when converting back and forth between MS Office and LibreOffice.

You'd also want to be familiar with Adobe Acrobat and MS PowerPoint.

Where I work, we also use IBM DOORS for anything relating to requirements.  But that's pretty niche.

Cheers Mark,

I'm pretty familiar with microsoft except not so much with Adobe Acrobat and Visio - I will have a look-see and get more familar with them.  

Hey Mark, 

I've been told that the web based version of Microsoft 365 doesn't import existing templates. So if one is working on-site this is a problem becasue a new document needs to be formatted. Have you any experience with this ? Do you know of a way around it ? I ask because I want to work remotely and I am getting my head around any matters I may come across with regards to working on someones existing document. 

Visio is really just another vector graphics drawing package.  So if you're familiar with another one, then the principles will be the same.

I usually plug data into excel, but have been using google sheets lately which I also like - I find these useful for quick flow charts and circuit/systems sketches too. I will check out Visio for completeness. Ta

I must admit, I have never used Office 365.  My employer only uses the traditional Office.

I must admit, I have never used Office 365.  My employer only uses the traditional Office.

We had an issue recently with a contractor who couldn't use our corporate Word templates, it wasn't actually an issue - he could still work on the documents and when he sent them back they reformatted correctly as soon as I loaded them onto my PC. 

The very worst that will happen is that someone will have to cut and paste your words into their format.

The reason we all use pdfs so much is because a Word document written on one machine (or in one company) is very likely to like quite different in another. So I wouldn't worry about it too much - it's just life. And the main point is that it's the words you write that are important.

That said, if you do feel like getting into how the Styles function in Word works you will become a hero to your employers!!!

P.S. totally agree with Simon about Visio, it's wonderful, I use it for loads of things.