Reasons to Structure

[MATT TODD]

All right...tell me good, solid reasons why a company would want to
structure their documents. With my limited knowledge, I know structure
effectively controls styles, fonts, etc...but I could manage that myself
without structure. By extension, I know style control also controls
content location because particular types of writing usually use a
particular style...but I can also manage that myself. I know structure
is designed to encourage single-sourcing, but I'm already headed in that
direction without structure. I'm convinced with time and continuing
documentation analysis, I can parse our documentation so duplicate
verbiage in all our documents imports from one source. I can do that
without structure. I can use conditional text to further cut down
duplicate verbiage; it requires no structure. I can buy scripts or
third-party software to automate documentation procedures without
resorting to structure.

So tell me...why structure documentation? I don't know enough to answer
that question, and neither do my bosses. What's so great about it? What
capabilities does it offer that demand its use? Right now, I'm just
doing what I'm told, but it's always nice to found actions on solid
reason.

Matt

> I'm working with legacy documentation created in Word and FM 7.0 
> unstructured. The goal is FM 7.0 structured.

Whose goal is this, and why? I've seen the gee whiz demonstrations from
Adobe reps and been utterly convinced that I Need Structured Docs Now!
only to return to my pdf-output-only client projects that have no real
need for structured Frame. Before committing, make sure there's a
business case for structuring.