RE: Queries on Single Sourcing

["Elizabeth O'Shea" <elizabeth -dot- oshea -at- virtualaccess -dot- com>]

Mark noted:

Now you may actually require something more sophisticated than this. It
is impossible to tell without looking at your files. The best way to
make sure you get the right system may be to run the process by hand.
Break up your data into chunks. Name the chunks. Write down the
procedure for assembling the docs. Test the procedure by working through
it by hand. (You are tech writers so you know how to do this stuff.)
Once you know the procedure works, give it to a programmer (or a tool
vendor) and ask them to automate it for you.

<snip>

We probably will because we have a huge documentation set as it is. And
it's only going to get bigger. And there's only one allegedly-part-time
TW. I'm very keen on finding out more about single sourcing because we
have such a massive and difficult-to-maintain virtual pile of manuals,
user guides, installation guides, training handouts, and whatever I
might find out about next week or next month. I've ordered some books to
get me started, but the experiences of people working with
single-sourcing will probably be most important.

Mark sagely observed:

It is usually better to define your process and then look for a tool to
implement it, rather then starting with a tool and developing a process
around it.

Absolutely. This is the approach I'm planning to take when we begin the
Great Restructure of our long list of publications. I expect that
immediate need will try to push that process off the agenda. But I hope
to have a system by the end of this year that will still be suitable
five and ten years from now (with tweaks, of course), so I'll fight my
corner on the process.

elizabeth


elizabeth -dot- oshea -at- virtualaccess -dot- com