RE: Queries on Single Sourcing

["Bill Swallow" <wswallow -at- nycap -dot- rr -dot- com>]

Hi Elizabeth. 

Unfortunately (for me), if I could accurately answer such questions
containing only two paragraphs of context (and be paid to do it), I'd be
long retired by now. ;)

I suggest you read my article to help you start thinking if single-sourcing
is indeed the right solution for you (http://tinyurl.com/yvb4t). Though,
given your source is HTML, there aren't too many formats you can publish to
(though you do have an easy means of satisfying a diverse number of customer
needs with that source format).

So, how do you deliver your documentation? Over the web? As a chm? As an
installed local web of information?

XML is not a wonder elixir. It could work for you, and then again it might
not. It all depends on how you implement it and whether it's OK to do so in
the first place.

To be honest, I have no advice for you other than for you to really think
about what you need. Forget about what you want; that's not important.
Determine your need... The need will make the solution apparent.

Good luck!

Bill Swallow
wswallow "at" nycap "dot" rr "dot" com 

::: -----Original Message-----
::: Most of our documentation is html. We have many variations 
::: on a single
::: product, and those variations have slightly different installation
::: procedures. Currently, I have to trawl through web pages to make
::: changes, and I rely very heavily on find and replace to make my work
::: faster and more accurate. But I could see how we could start
::: experimenting with single sourcing by getting this installation info
::: into a database and then pulling it into web pages.
::: 
::: So, how do I get the chunks into the web pages? Is this an 
::: xml task? Or
::: would we need one of the applications a few people have 
::: mentioned to do it?