TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
We wanted a simple content creation and managenent system accessed by all our people (including non-tech-writers) for creating and storing content ... primarily for internal consumption (although some of the pages have external Customer access).
Atlassian's Confluence is our choice for these internal documents, action plans, bug reports and tracking (in Jira), etc., etc., etc., and it seems like an _okay_ (if mediocre, IMHO) place for all this work.
So, at the moment, our content lives on Confluence.
In my case, I find it difficult, at best, for content _once_ formatting becomes important. My text goes into LaTeX (used to be FrameMaker) since template control is so incredibly easy and the resulting PDF output is nice and consistent!
_If needed for marketing collateral_, content from Confluence is worked on by a tech writer and a designer using InDesign, Photoshop, etc., to create "glossies" that are placed into Highspot for access by our Sales folks (for distribution to customers, etc.)
In other words, the process of converting content in Confluence into glossier collateral is not automated - the text, tables, and figures, etc., are worked manually.
So, I'd love to get input from you (and others) on your comment below of "Confluence quickly reaches its limits" ... to see if it matches our experience (again, mediocre ... IMHO ... because other people here seem to like it).
And, in particular, if not Confluence, what do you and others use for efficient, _relatively_ inexpensive (given the number of people we have), content management systems that:
(a) are "in the cloud" - important in these WFH times for easy access by everybody
(b) have version control - including easy comparisons between multiple revisions
(c) have access controls for folders and documents - to individuals or pre-defined groups?
(d) support other need(s) - please elaborate if you have the time.
Does anyone have a Requirements doc for a content management system that they could share with me?
Thanks much!
Z
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+syed -dot- hosain=aeris -dot- net -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com <techwr-l-bounces+syed -dot- hosain=aeris -dot- net -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> On Behalf Of Nina Barzgaran
Sent: Saturday, November 7, 2020 9:10 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Tools
Hi All,
fascinating, how different the outlook is for people.
One thing is certain:
* Confluence is neither 'good' or 'bad' taken on its own.
**It depends on your setup and use case!**
If you are a tech writer with only some experience with large bodies of documentation, say, over 1000 pages (Confluence count), with requirements as regards output, possibly even bundling documentation with a software product at build time, you will know what others before me also put nicely and concisely: Confluence quickly reaches its limits.
*You have to do tests and actually find toolchains that fit your
environment.*
I worked both with larger developer teams (30) and with smaller ones (5-15).
We did not use developing documentation directly. We had collaboration with SMEs, though. There are all kinds of collaboration features either included in professional Help Authoring Tools or you can import simple document formats like Word into them without much effort.
But as soon as the requirements for output and documentation versioning, for example, managing content in one place and yet output to the most common formats these days, such as DITA, ebook or even PDF are requirements, Confluence will quickly hit its limits.
I know the Scroll plugins, but the same applies here:
Define proper requirements - and test.
Regards
Nina
Am 05/11/2020 um 00:00 schrieb Syed Zaeem Hosain:
> Ah, I had not thought that editing the source for the page.
>
> A bit of a "roll my eyes" thing to have to edit the HTML for limitations in the Confluence editor ... but ... I will try it.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Z
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Robert Lauriston said:
>> You need a source editor plugin. Then you can fix the underlying table HTML. I use that around once a month to fix table rows with an extra or missing cell.
>> free for Server:
>> https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1210722/confluence-source-edit
>> or
>> paid for Cloud:
>> https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1215664/source-editor-for-conf
>> luence
> On Mon, Nov 2, 2020 at 10:15 AM Syed Zaeem Hosain <Syed -dot- Hosain -at- aeris -dot- net> wrote:
>> ... We have struggled with pages where people 'accidentally' split tables into more than one table. Without any [apparent] way to recombine them (I have done this myself, so cannot blame others too much).
>>
>> If you don't catch the error in time, then the only way to fix the issue is to drop all the changes since the last publish, revert to an earlier version of the page, and try again!
>>
>> And, I have yet to figure out (I guess I am not using Confluence tables enough) _what_ we do to cause the table split in the first place.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Visit TechWhirl for the latest on content technology, content strategy
> and content development | https://techwhirl.com
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as nina -dot- barzgaran -at- barzgaran -dot- at -dot-
>
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to
> techwr-l-leave -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>
>
> Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- Visit
>http://www.techwhirl.com/email-discussion-groups/ for more resources and info.
>
> Looking for articles on Technical Communications? Head over to our
> online magazine at http://techwhirl.com
>
> Looking for the archived Techwr-l email discussions? Search our
> public email archives @ http://techwr-l.com/archives
--
Nina Barzgaran, M.A.
Technical Communicator
Linzer StraÃe 434-436/3/23
1140 Wien
Ãsterreich
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Visit TechWhirl for the latest on content technology, content strategy and content development | https://techwhirl.com
Looking for articles on Technical Communications? Head over to our online magazine at http://techwhirl.com
Looking for the archived Techwr-l email discussions? Search our public email archives @ http://techwr-l.com/archives
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Visit TechWhirl for the latest on content technology, content strategy and content development | https://techwhirl.com
