How would you organize these documents?

[Martinek, Carla]

-----Original Message-----

     How would you maintain these files? 
     Conditional text? Separate books? 


Short Answer:  Yes to both.


Long Answer:

You're thinking about this the correct way.  Break apart your content
into topical files (or modules).   Then, within the modules, use
conditional text to handle the differences between features available to
particular customers.

Create a logical conditional text setup before you go any further.
Also, always apply conditional text in the positive -- never create a
conditional tag such as "NotinModuleB" as this will only get you in
trouble in the long run.  If you have to translate/localize your
content, NEVER conditionalize anything smaller than a sentence.

We created an "import from" file that sets the conditional text settings
and variable definitions for a particular manual. You may want to do the
same, creating one for each of your customer manuals.

I'm going to forward you [offlist] an email and sample "import from"
document that I've sent to others in the past.  We manage several OEM
versions of our documents, on 6 product lines, with multiple types of
guides (Quick Ref, User, Maintenance Manual, Maintenance Kit,
Programming Guide...)  Our conditional text matrix has 80+ conditions
that we manage fairly effectively in unstructured FM7.2.

-Carla
 
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