Tools that help with acronyms and jargon in software requirement documents

Question

Are there any tools that would help with reading software requirement documents that contain a mix of domain specific and company specific acronyms and jargon. In particular I was looking for a tool that would allow me to view Acrobat or Microsoft Word documents and make it easier to understand acronyms and other jargon. This could be done by displaying a popup window or tooltip with an explanation of the acronym or jargon when I click on the acronym / jargon. The actual explanations would be provided to the tool in text format.

For example consider the following text:

Currently, there is a MPY-NFU tab in the range window. To support changes required by FCR_MPADS_049 (Interface with BJT) and FCR_MPADS_054 (Interface with NED), the MPY-NFU tab will be replaced with two tabs: * The “FFD” Tab – Allows the eligible operator to view and edit OPUBMs (Other, GEB) and create, view and edit FFD (Free Format Data) * The “NFU” tab – Allows the eligible operator to view NFU information.

This paragraph contains 5 acronyms and couple of phrases that could be considered jargon (for example eligible operator). With limited domain/company/product knowledge, this paragraph doesn't make sense. To understand the meaning, I have to look up and search through the acronym list (which is not part of the actual document) and guess at the meaning. This may take 20 minutes of my time, compared to 20 seconds for someone that is familiar with all the acronyms. With a good tool, I can imagine cutting the reading and understand time from 20 minutes down to about 2 minutes - order of magnitude saving.

Having a tool (preferably free) that makes acronyms and jargon easier to deal with would really improve our productivity and make the task of dealing with these software requirement documents much more enjoyable. Any suggestions, I imagine this would be a common problem.

Answer 1

This isn't so much a tool, but .... every one of my organizations software requirements documents contains a definitions and acronyms section at the beginning of the document (a sub-section of the SRS introduction). Not at the end - not a glossary. The reader gets introduced to the terms right away and even if he/she glosses over the section, they will know it is there for future reference.

Is this a tool? Not so much. But it is a very easy, very straightforward, and inexpensive solution.

Answer 2

I don't know if this is an option but writers could use the "Table of Authorities" of Microsoft Word for this purpose. See the "Option 4" of How to create a glossary in Microsoft Word. Maybe you can initiate a part of this work and introduce this a good practice...