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Subject:Single Sourcing using Word, RoboHelp, and PPT? From:Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 02 Nov 2005 18:19:46 -0500
Ashaki Hamlett wondered: <<Current situation: The Training department
creates classroom materials, online tutorials, and presentations. The
classroom materials and online tutorials are identical in content, but
published in different mediums (Word and RoboHelp respectively). Some
of the content found in the classroom material and online tutorial is
also found in the presentation. Three different people create the three
above-mentioned documents. For obvious reasons, this solution isn't the
best. Therefore, I proposed we try another solution.>>
Messy situation. What you're really looking for is one source file that
you can use to generate multiple products. Unfortunately, none of the
products you're using handles all three formats elegantly. The solution
may be to think a bit outside the box. Specifically:
<<Proposed Solution: - Write content in Word in the outline view and
this document serves as your source file>>
So far, so good. This gives you a single source file with really good
tools for writing and revision.
<<- From the source file, use the Send to PPT feature to generate
presentation (once in PPT, apply template for appropriate styles and
format)>>
Something that you'd think would work, but as of Office XP (and
possibly later), Word and Powerpoint simply don't speak the same
language. The "send" feature works appallingly poorly, and this means
that you'll waste a lot of time reformatting the Powerpoint file.
Getting text out of Powerpoint and back into Word is also a pain in the
ASCII.
As well, Powerpoint imposes significant limitations on how you produce
presentations; Edward Tufte exaggerated when he (paraphrasing here <g>)
compared Powerpoint to the crack cocaine of software, but he had some
very good points, and Powerpoint really does have severe limitations.
Moreover, if you focus on Powerpoint, you miss some better options for
presentations.
<<From the source file, copy and paste all the content into a new file,
save the new file as a .rtf , and import the .rtf into RoboHelp to
generate online tutorial>>
If the content is already in Word, simply do a "save as" and select
"RTF" as the output format. That saves you one step. And although you
can import this file into RoboHelp, here's another thought: get rid of
the Powerpoint step, work in HTML, and use HTML as both your help
format and your presentation format! A friend despises Powerpoint so
much that he now gives all his presentations in HTML (using CSS to
control the page format) or even in PDF!
Here's a rough cut at how this could work. (You'll need to refine a few
details on your own, depending on your version of Word etc.) This
approach has the advantage that you can test it out in about an hour
using 3 or 4 test files to see how it works for you:
1. In Word, set up your content so that each "page" is in a separate
file. To create a single "book" file out of all these scattered files,
DO NOT use the Master Document feature; it's badly broken, and only
Steve Hudson seems to be able to make it work reliably. Instead, create
a single file filled with INCLUDETEXT fields linked to each of the
individual files; when you update the fields, the file fills
automatically with the content from the individual files, in the
specified order. (See the online help about this field for details.)
Use cross-references within the individual files to create hyperlinks
between files.
2. For each file, do a "save as" and select "Web page" or HTML as the
format, depending on your version of Word. Word produces ugly HTML, but
it's still an acceptable output format. (You noted that you are good
with macros, so you can always write some to clean up Word's HTML
output.) A better solution might be to save the files in HTML in the
first place, then open them as HTML in Word and edit them that way.
This saves a conversion step.
3. You can now open the HTML in a browser and use that as your
presentation format. If you add a hyperlink to the next document in the
series at the end of each individual file, that becomes your "next
slide" button. Ideally, you want to run the browser in "full screen"
mode so as to banish the toolbars and menus. Some browsers may let you
do this right out of the box (e.g., Apple's Safari), but for others,
you may need to do a bit of hacking. See, for example, the following
for Internet Explorer (IE):
http://www.theeldergeek.com/run_explorer_full_screen.htm (There's
probably an easier way to handle this, such as by installing a plug-in,
but I don't use IE anymore and thus can't provide specific
instructions.)
4. You can use the HTML directly as a help file, particularly if you
supplement your current tools with something like DevaTools
(http://www.devahelp.com/). Or if you've got RoboHTML, you can import
the files. (Haven't done this for many years, so I can't provide
details.)
*Very* kludgy, but it gives you maximum control of your outputs and
represents a zero-cost single-sourcing solution unless you have to
purchase the Deva software or RoboHTML.
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RoboHelp content into your new Help systems. EContent Magazine Decision-
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