RE: Someone to do the "donkey work"?

Subject: RE: Someone to do the "donkey work"?
From: Paul Hanson <phanson -at- Quintrex -dot- com>
To: "techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 10:39:02 -0600

Although I haven't tried this so it needs some more investigation, my first thoughts were to record an all-inclusive macro that would:

search for the name of a manual
replace the text with a hyperlink
search for the name of manual #2
replace the text with a hyperlink

loop through the doc for each manual in the documentation set.

Once you have a macro,
assign a button or hot key to it,
store it in a specific template, and
distributing that template to each writer.

I think autocorrect would work too, though - hadn't considered that. Excellent suggestion!

Paul Hanson
Technical Writer
RoboHelp ACE - http://www.adobe.com/support/forums/team_macromedia/robohelp.html
Quintrex Data Systems http://www.quintrex.com
email: phanson at quintrex.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Geoff Hart
<snip>
fwiw, this kind of thing can be automated reasonably well. If you're
using Word, for instance, create autocorrect shortcuts for each
hyperlink, and distribute those to the whole writing team. If you're
using software (e.g., Frame, Blaze) that supports variables, define
the hyperlinks as variables and distribute those definitions too. If
your software provides neither feature, create a single file that
contains a master list of all file locations, store it on the network
where everyone can reach it, and let your writers copy and paste the
links instead of having to hunt them down each time. When a link
changes, remind everyone to update their autocorrects, variables, or
whatever you're using to store this information.
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Follow-Ups:

References:
Someone to do the "donkey work": From: Downing, David
Someone to do the "donkey work"?: From: Geoff Hart

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