General technical-editing skills
Technical editors usually wear several hats (often more than one simultaneously), like the various colored safety helmets for different types of workers in the construction industry. Fact checking and document layout are the two most important functions of technical editing.
Fact checking
The most important skill for technical editors to possess is some general or specific knowledge of the subject matter. Either the editors must know the material themselves or they will have to rely upon subject-matter experts (SMEs). However, for many projects the site owners will accept the responsibilities that their sites are already adequately fact checked, thus relieving technical editors of that major task. It is vitally important that the important, relevant details for this aspect of technical editing be clearly spelled out from the very outset for every project in order to eliminate misunderstandings about exactly what technical editors should and should not do for every individual project.
Document layout
The other major skill is knowing how to perform the desired layouts for the documents—be they printed books for print-on-demand (POD) self-publishers or for websites on business intranets or on the Internet. A working knowledge of Microsoft Word (or OpenOffice.org Writer) formatting styles or Adobe FrameMaker tags, in addition to cascading style sheets (CSS) is a decided plus, if not—a necessity for formatting the detailed look-and-feel for all your editing projects.