Re[2]: Web Server & Documents

["Ridder, Fred" <ridderf -at- DIALOGIC -dot- COM>]

Dan Roberts posed some questions regarding Word documents as the single
source for HTML and WinHelp as well as printed forms

     I'm curious whether you use your Word doc as 'single source' for
     WinHelp and HTML doc also?

This is the approach Dialogic takes.

     If you do single source the various versions, do you optimize the
doc
     with any special tricks that only either WinHelp or HTML support
(such
     as links in the middle of a topic) which might look very odd in
     printed doc.

HTML Transit makes the translation to HTML pretty painless and
transparent.
If you want a link anywhere in your doc, you just insert text via a REF
to a bookmark rather than typing it directly.  The text contained in the
bookmark is the text of the hypertext link for each REF field, and the
location of the bookmark is the target of the link.  The appearance of
the printed document doesn't change in the slightest.

     If you do optimize your online versions, where do you keep the
     additional information for that optimization - in the source Word
     file, or in the WinHelp or HTML files?

One strategy is to define styles in the Word file that are "print-only"
and "online-only" (perhaps further splitting that latter into HTML-only
and WinHelp-only) and delete the content that is tagged with the non-
relevant styles before running the conversion.  This has its limits,
but some of the other optimization can be done by a few clever Word
macros that you use prior to each conversion.

     If the optimization information is in the WinHelp or HTML files, how
     do you get changed information from the Word files to the online
     versions.

I generally keep a copy of the final tweaked Word file that I use as
the source file for HTML Transit just in case I need to make some small
changes.  For minor revisions it is often quicker to edit that tweaked
file directly (or copy-and-paste into it) and then just run Transit
rather than going through the full clean-up/tweaking process on the
whole file.  For larger or more numerous changes it's probably easier
to redo the full process.

Fred Ridder
f -dot- ridder -at- dialogic -dot- com
Senior Technical Writer
Dialogic Corporation

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