Structured FrameMaker and MS Word XML Import

[Marcus Carr]

David Versdahl wrote:

> We are embarking on a new project with a new 1200 page book. There are two
> audiences for this book. One is a subset of the other. The request is that
> we base this book on a single MS Word document that is maintained by one or
> engineers at different sites. The content is constantly changing with the
> addition of new material and the excising of outdated information.

So you're a large company with big publications containing frequently 
changing data maintained by distributed editors? You seriously need a 
collaborative authoring environment. My company sells PageSeeder 
(http://www.pageseeder.com) - with it, you would:

  o get the distributed authors to update the data through a
    Word-like interface running in a web browser, so requiring no
    client-side software,

  o when they finish, you'd save the data as XML and load it into
    FrameMaker.

This would provide you with full auditability and security, as well as 
the opportunity for the authors (and anyone else they may care to 
invite) to carry on threaded discussions within the documents, all 
carried out through whatever email client they choose to use.

It's all about using the right tool for the job. You shouldn't have too 
much trouble convincing a semiconductor company of that.


-- 
Regards,

Marcus Carr                      email:  mcarr at allette.com.au
___________________________________________________________________
Allette Systems (Australia)      www:    http://www.allette.com.au
___________________________________________________________________
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
        - Einstein