Archive Formats

[Hope Cascio <hope -dot- d -dot- cascio -at- US -dot- ARTHURANDERSEN -dot- COM>]

While we don't have immediate plans here to output to HTML documentation
yet, I've recently worked out how we could.  Currently, we use RoboHELP to
deliver online Help.  We're planning to also single source a user's manual.
My proposal (I've just posted about this under the subject "Word 97 Linking
'Features'") is to use the special linking features in Word 97 to create
OLE links from the Word documents used in creating the Help.  Both RoboHELP
and RoboHTML can output from the online Help source docs to create HTML
Help.

We archive our documentation each time we make a change.  We only archive
the Word docs currently, but are looking at other options to archive all of
our working files.

On a side note, out of a purely personal interest, what tools you're using
to create documentation in HTML that incorporates JavaScript and CSSs.
What do you think of them?

Hope Cascio, Knowledge Transfer Developer
Arthur Andersen

Diane Burke  <Diane -dot- Burke -at- COGNOS -dot- COM> wrote:
I am running into a challenge with our documentation concerning archiving
or
single-sourcing. Indeed, are these two processes even synonymous?
Up until recently, our documentation was archived/single-sourced in MS
Word.
From this, we were able to create two outputs, WinHelp and printed
documentation, with minimal fuss. We have now added another output to the
mix - HTML/web-based documents that incorporate Javascript and CSSs.
Is anyone else putting a process into place that allows authoring and
maintaining HTML documentation and that also permits conversion to a
printable medium for publishing as a manual?
What archive/single-source processes are others using?