RE: Word and single-sourcing

[<quills -at- airmail -dot- net>]

Anytime you tell someone to do programming to accomplish this, you have moved past 
the point of using a tools that works to using a complicated process that is 
difficult to use, maintain or develop.

The real problem is single-sourcing. The final output is the least of your worries 
or concerns. The real concern is the audience of those mulitple outputs. How 
similar are they? What are they expecting in the documentation, what do they need 
in the documentation?

If any one of those three diverge, then single-sourcing will be difficult, if not 
impossible. To single source in this situation you have to write small chunks of 
information that can be placed into any situaition and remain germane and 
intelligible. No small feat of writing.

What you are discussing in programming these is not single-sourcing so much as 
database publishing, which is more versatile. It still isn't simple or easy.

Scott

On Fri Jul  6  7:50 , "Dori Green"  sent:

>I've done this in both directions -- similar to a mailmerge (see the Word manual), 
and by the following method:
>
>1. Create block of info as a standalone document in Word (for example, Training 
Policy).
>
>2. Set up an Access database in which each of those Word documents is linked as an 
object.  Give each a brief but descriptive title.
>
>3.  Pull the relevant pieces from that reference database.
>
>There are more complicated ways to get 'er done, but quick and so easy that even a 
VP can understand it works very well for me.
>
>See the Word manual and the Access Programming for Dummies book (I'm not being 
facetious or insulting, that's the book I used and I'm not ashamed).
>
>Dori Green
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Create HTML or Microsoft Word content and convert to Help file formats or 
printed documentation. Features include support for Windows Vista & 2007 
Microsoft Office, team authoring, plus more.
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True single source, conditional content, PDF export, modular help.
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