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John Posada also had questions related to review: <<Yesterday, my
management asked me to come up with a system of document review. I'm
writing in FM andeveryone else uses Word. For the purposes of this
discussion, no, I'm not switching back to Word and they are not
learning FM>>
I'll insert one suggestion right at the start that you won't accept,
then move on to ones that you might accept: Do your writing and review
in Word, then import the files in Frame for final layout and
formatting. This approach is used by just about every book and magazine
and newspaper publisher in the world (though they use DTP software
rather than Frame) because it works, and works extremely well. Word is
the best word processor going; Frame kicks ass for document layout. Why
not take advantage of their respective strengths?
Since everyone else is using Word, sometimes John has to go to the
mountain rather than making the mountain come to him. <g> Okay, since
that's not going to happen, on to a few alternatives:
It should be quite feasible and possibly even easy to "round trip" via
RTF. Export from Frame to RTF, open the files in Word, edit them using
revision tracking, review the edits in Word, then reimport the files.
This approach will probably force you to do some cleanup and
reformatting in Frame, but will work better than the alternative:
If you find the reimport process too difficult, copy the edits manually
between Word and Frame. This works very well if most edits are simple
comments; it won't work particularly well if you're talking actual
copyediting (i.e., heavy sentence-level changes as opposed to "this
number should be 5, not 10" comments).
<<I first considered the PDF review process. However, my problem with
PDF is it creates another set of content, which I have to
incorporate.>>
It's also entirely useless for actual editing; PDF files can only be
commented, not edited, and you can't easily extract the text back into
Frame. I've tried it, and despise this approach. You may be more
masochistic than I am. <g>
<<My manager suggested a WIKI. I'm not big on that idea.>>
Can't comment on that; haven't used one.
<<I want a workflow process that can be enforced on the reviewers.>>
That requires heavy management buy-in. You can't create that kind of
cooperation just by creating a process. Reviews always have two
components: buy in from the users, and the technology for the reviews.
I'll focus on the latter.
<<I also considered impelementing something similar to what I saw in a
Macromedia HTML help where when the reader clicked a button, a java
script launched that allowed the integration of content right onto the
help topic for all to see. I kinda like that, but again the same
problem as PDF, getting their stuff into my stuff.>>
Have a look at some of the products produced by BlastRadius
(http://blastradius.com/products/index.jsp). Note that although they
focus on XML, their products will work equally well with well-formed
HTML. The "DocumentSpaces" product may meet your needs in terms of
collaboration. Haven't seen that, but I have seen demos of the "XML
Reviewer" product (http://www.xmetal.com/products/xmetal_reviewer/). If
this works even remotely as well in practice as it does in demos, it's
a kickass solution for actual editing and review: every bit as good as
Word's revision tracking.
I've been having an ongoing argument with the XML Reviewer that they
should specifically sell this to the HTML authoring market, since it
would be a kickass Web page collaboration/review tool. If you agree,
send them mail. They don't believe me about this. <g>
<<My current thoughts are to use WWP Final Draft. My understanding is
that I author in FM, they edit in Browser. Correct>>
Sort of. My understanding is that Final Draft is no better than a PDF
solution in terms of actual editing (it only allows commenting, not
substantive edits), but that it provides a good collaborative
environment. But I haven't worked with the product and am basing this
opinion on the early versions I read about, so I defer to those who
have actual experience with the product on this issue.
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