DITA possible for start-up/lone writer?

[Bernard Aschwanden]

Hi all:

I've just finished the first solid draft of our FrameDITA-lite application for use with FrameMaker and DITA. It is built to work with Frame 7.2, but the bulk of it should also work with 7.0 and 7.1.

It's not the most stunning tool ever, but it is a pretty solid XML and FrameMaker utility that has about 40 pages of documentation that walks you through installation, tutorials, testing and more.

It may be something that a single writer can consider as a solid starting point for single sourcing. The price on it is perfect for the lone writer (or the mega corporation) as it's free. I'm giving it away.

With this application and some very cool (and affordable) tools by West Street Consulting (http://www.weststreetconsulting.com) a lot of the ideas for single sourcing are addressed that can help the smaller company as well as the largest. It allows for granular reuse of paragraphs, sections, topics, tasks and so on. It also provides the ability to export to DITA compliant XML. The formatting and layout can be tweaked with relative ease if you know FrameMaker and the EDD environment. If not, I also provide some online support and consulting on it.

I've sent the file to a few people on the various lists already and will continue to do so over the weekend, but if you are interested in being a part of the beta team to test it, please let me know.

My goal is to have this ready for general use before the big DITA conference this month (http://conf.travelthepath.com if you are interested in more info) so that I can show it to anyone who asks while we are there.

Again, if you are interested in beta testing, please email me off list and let me know. I'd love to have input on this and get it solid enough that everyone can take advantage of a working file set for use with FrameMaker and DITA.

Thanks,

Bernard



Bernard Aschwanden
Publishing Technologies Expert
Publishing Smarter

bernard at publishingsmarter.com 

www.publishingsmarter.com 


-----Original Message-----
From: framers-bounces+bernard=publishingsmarter.com at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-bounces+bernard=publishingsmarter.com at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Joe Malin
Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2006 3:58 PM
To: HATT at yahoogroups.com; framers at lists.frameusers.com; techwr-l at lists.techwr-l.com
Subject: DITA possible for start-up/lone writer?

Hi!
 
I am looking for experiences and advice about using DITA from tech writers who are familiar with real success stories.
 
I'm the only tech writer here at TuVox, a 70-person startup. I am seriously considering using DITA as the basis of a single-source structured documentation environment. The reasons I want single-source and structure are 

*	re-use, to avoid duplication
*	multi-channel delivery: ability to re-structure help systems
into documents
*	localization/customization: ability to tailor documentation to
individual customers
*	quick, iterative delivery: respond quickly to emerging needs