Document Customization

[Trevor Keohane <trevor_keohane -at- COMPUSERVE -dot- COM>]

Hi all,

Can anyone help me with this requirement..?

I'm in an environment where we produce a large number of documents in
Microsoft word 95. These are 'One-Stop' documents that are used for
training and online materials (we are using Doc-to-help to produce the help
from the word doc).

The real killer of a problem is customization/localization. We send the
docs out to country-level operations, who then localize the files. They in
turn release the files to our customers who customize both the software and
the documentation.

The problem we face is in updating the documents - both the local
operations and the customers have a file with their work applied to it, and
don't want to lose that work and reapply it to the new version of the file.

I can't find any way of doing this. I essentially have two files that are
quite similar, but both have differences from the other. Word revision
marks get confused if you do a compare or merge, and if two paragraphs are
in the same location but both contain revisions, it will overwrite one with
the other. Basically, revisions just aren't smart enough to do the job...

Does anyone know of any software that can handle this sort of problem? I've
searched around the usegroups and the internet but found nothing so far...

Gary Bunker

gary_bunker -at- cyborg -dot- com

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