RE: Help & Manual questions.

Subject: RE: Help & Manual questions.
From: "Fred Ridder" <docudoc -at- hotmail -dot- com>
To: mabr -at- flir -dot- se, techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2005 10:43:28 -0500

I'm sorry, but XML and Docbook don't seem like a good fit for a
company where content is generated by "database developers"
who have a "limited knowledge of Word and most desktop
publishing programs" and where the requirement is that the
solution "has to be simple to grasp and relatively easy to use".
Docbook is very complex, even if somebody goes to the trouble
of correctly defining an appropriate subset of the huge element
catalog, and an XML authoring and multi-output publishing
environment is not easy to use for people who generate
documentation as a sideline task. And case studies have shown
that there is a significant cost involved with migrating to XML,
and that may not be acceptable to "a non-profit organization
with a limited capital expense budget" (and presumably similar
limitations on their operational budget, too).

My opinions only; I don't speak for Intel
Fred Ridder
Intel
Parsippany, NJ

From: "Broberg, Mats" <mabr -at- flir -dot- se>
To: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Subject: RE: Help & Manual questions.
Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 15:12:00 +0100

Edwin wrote:

> Unless much has changed since I last looked, DocBook is a
> Document Type Definition (SGML and XML ), not a tool. As
> such, you can use the DocBook tag set to structure your
> content in SGML or XML, but converting it into PDF, HTML, and
> other outputs would require a tool chain that included
> parsers, style sheets and formatting objects.

I know it's a DTD and not a tool. Regarding the tool chain, there are
several editors that include a parser and FOP and generate PDF out of
the box.

> XML systems are more useful in more information repurposing
> projects with a highly granular defiition.

I beg to differ. Even with a granulation at chapter level (as I use in
my own XML system) you save large amounts of time and money using XML.

Best regards,
Mats Broberg
Technical Documentation Manager

www.flirthermography.com

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