Re: templates

[Mysti <mysti -at- SYBASE -dot- COM>]

Interesting ideas you've raised:

> Although I do agree that templates for documents (and possibly for online
> information) are useful, I worry about their rigidity.  I don't think
> anyone would argue that the ultimate format has been designed for anything.
> Personally, I'm a little leery of any company that says "here is our format--
> it works. There will be no deviations."

Well, if SGML catches on, it's my understanding that non-standard
paragraph styles will cause the document to fail to compile, unless
you make up a new DLL file.  So this sort of rigidity may become
necessary if you want to separate the content from the processing.

> So I was just wondering if those of you out there who are using templates
> have built in a review process on say, an annual or by-project basis, that
> ensures all these pre-formatted documents are as good, efficient, useful as
> they can be.  What kinds of policies *can* you put into place to be sure
> a company's documents don't become too rigid or inefficient?

We have a "style committee" which meets every other week and makes policy
decisions based on questions any writer in the group brings to us.  We have
members from all the different tech writing groups.  It's a difficult, annoying
and exhausting process, but it ensures that our templates stay up to date,
and as useful as possible (as well as consistent).

Even this can get tricky, if, for example only one group at a company
moves to color documents or other such "disasters".  We've had to put
in a lot of extra time to make sure the color templates don't deviate
from the black n white ones any more than necessary.

To us the effort is worth it for the following reasons:

        Better flexibility if we change software programs (the conversion
                from troff to Frame was ugly because of all the hand
                tinkering required because so many of us had used
                nonstandard tables, macros or kludges of various kinds)
        Easier to move writers around--less internal training time
        Easier to put docs online if they are consistently formatted
        Easier to initiate changes (everybody can just apply new formats
                from a common template when we get big style changes)
        Ease of use for our customers, who learn what to expect from a doc.