Helpful Tips Articles
Ensure temp-to-perm really does go perm
Finding
a single-source tool
By
Gail Van Landingham
Before I talk about single sourcing, let me digress for a moment and tell you my bike story. I recently went bike shopping and discovered that bikes come in a lot of flavors. Things have changed since the old days when I had a 10-speed. Now, I can choose from a street bike, mountain bike, hybrid bike (combining features of a street bike and mountain bike), comfort bike, or cruiser. The saleslady sold me on the hybrid when she told me it was like a sports car and the comfort bike was like a minivan. Bike prices ranged from expensive to more than my first car.
Single sourcing is like that. You can use a simple technique or a very sophisticated and expensive tool. You can find a variety of definitions for single sourcing, but I like: "write once, publish many."
Multiple outputs and multiple versions
At our company, we have a small staff and big demands for the following types of documentation.
- Print and online help. We produce a comprehensive online help file (CHM extension) and multiple printed user guides.
- Guides targeted to specific audiences. Our printed guides include a comprehensive user guide and several smaller guides targeted to a specific audience. For example, one guide is for referring physicians and one is for radiologists.
- Versions for multiple releases. For example, we have a help file for the current production release and another one for the new beta release.
Some tools that I've used in the past
In the past, I've used other tools for single sourcing, including Doc-To-Help® and FrameMaker® plus WebWorks® Publisher. In both cases, the source was a long document that was converted to online help.
Why I like using RoboHelp®
At my current company, we use RoboHelp®. I like this tool because the source is in individual HTML pages. This tool:
- Helps me to "think modular." My canvas for each topic is a single HTML page, not a long document.
- Provides an extensive set of tools to do a quality check of online help, including broken hyperlinks.
The basics of using RoboHelp® as a single-source tool
The basic steps include:
- Create modular topics.
- Create and apply "conditional build tags" (markers that tell the system to include or exclude content from an output ) to text or an entire topic. (You can use conditional text to identify what to include in print or in online help, in specific guides, and in specific versions.)
- Create a simple set of styles with meaningful names. Keep the styles simple because later you need to map each style name to a style in a Word template.
- Set up a specific table of contents for each printed guide. (In addition to using conditional build tags, you can create a separate table of contents for each book and restructure the topics as needed.)
For more information
For more information on single sourcing, check out the Single-Sourcing SIG at http://www.stcsig.org/ss/index.htm.
The mission of this SIG is to help "STC members develop knowledge and practical skills for researching, developing, and implementing single-sourcing solutions." You don't need to join the SIG to read the newsletter articles or to see the "useful links" section.
See next month's newsletter for details on how we use RoboHelp® for single sourcing.
