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RE: Two questions for single-sourcing practitioners
Subject:RE: Two questions for single-sourcing practitioners From:"David Knopf" <david -at- knopf -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Sat, 16 Mar 2002 13:21:35 -0800
Dick Margulis [mailto:margulis -at- mail -dot- fiam -dot- net] wrote:
| So you're saying install a publishing system (FrameMaker/Webworks),
manage
| all content there, then export it in multiple formats that can then be
| imported into MS Office apps, PageMaker, an MS SQL Server database
(for
| further reuse in ASP pages), and on and on.
Oh heavens, no! It does not sound to me as if Frame/WebWorks (or a
similar solution) would be very helpful at all in solving the larger
problem you described. I was answering (or trying to) the *much* smaller
question of how to deal with, for example, a registered trademark symbol
that must be superscripted in print but not in HTML. I was saying only
that this type of issue is easily solved in most true single sourcing
systems.
| Can I define all those different output media and the details of how I
| want characters processed, or do I have to rely on the limited number
of
| filters that already exist?
You can define the precise details of how you want each and every unique
character etc. to be represented in each output medium. You do not need
to rely on pre-defined filters.
| It seems odd to use one publishing system (that we do not use for
| documentation) to manage content for a gaggle of other publishing
systems.
| Is this the most efficient approach, or is there something that can be
| done directly in a database application?
It would be beyond odd. From your description, I don't think yours is a
problem of needing to single source so much as it is needing to collect,
manage, and assess disparate data objects in a wide variety of formats
created on the fly by people who perhaps don't spend enough time
communicating with each other. A solution to the problem would, I think,
certainly involve a database component, but databases can only go so
far.
WebWorks and RoboHelp Certified - RoboHelp MVP
Member, RoboHelp Advisory Board & JavaHelp 2.0 Expert Group
Moderator, HATT & wwp-users
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