Legal basis and standards in technical documentations

Of central importance for our work as technical editors are the EU guidelines and their transfer in national laws in the Federal Republic of Germany. Above all, this is of course the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EG and the Directive 98/37/EG, expiring latest at 1st January 2010. This along with other guidelines has been transcribed into national law by the Equipment and Product Safety Act.

A lot of other laws, guidelines and regulations affect the content and layout of the technical documentation. For researchers and those interested we provide an overview of currently valid laws and guidelines.  This list does not claim to be complete, it is meant to be an insight into the legal basis we always revert to.

If you want to inform about the full contents and validity of the listed laws, we recommend visiting the following websites: www.gesetze-im-internet.de is the homepage of the German Federal Ministry of Justice where German laws and acts are accessible, good full-text search. www.juris.de provides legislative texts in cooperation with the BJM.