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Subject:Tools for a new doc environment From:Shawn Brown-Knoernschild <sbk -at- PENTATECHINC -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 8 Oct 1997 15:56:00 -0500
At my company, we are in the process of drafting a plan for a future documentation environment. We are a small software company with one product that is updated quarterly. With so many releases, we are having problems keeping documents cohesive and organized. We support an ORACLE database containing about 1,000 tables, and we want to develop a central repository of descriptive text about each data element.
I'm posting to the list because we want to locate a tool (we are currently working with Word and Robohelp) that will permit us to get the maximum re-use of the data descriptions. For instance, we would like to be able to merge raw text without the data descriptions with something containing the data descriptions and achieve a final text (such as a traditional paper manual) that shares the same descriptions as the online, context-sensitive help. We want to produce paper docs while building toward a future where our customers can download documentation from the Internet.
Does anyone know of software programs that can fulfill the following criteria?
1. Online and paper documents written and edited from a single source.
2. Online help easily updated.
3. Object-oriented.
4. User-definable online help is not affected (erased) by system upgrades.
If you have any suggestions or information leading to suggestions, please respond to me directly. Thank you in advance.
Shawn Brown-Knoernschild
sbk -at- pentatechinc -dot- com
Penta Technologies, Inc.
Views expressed are mine, not necessarily Penta's.
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