Structuring documents (was RE: Adobe's New Corporate Strategies)

[Jeremy H. Griffith]

On Thu, 29 Apr 2010 13:23:54 -0700, "Matt Sullivan" 
<matt at grafixtraining.com> 
wrote:

>While there's structured framemaker, dita, and a host 
>of third party plugins can anyone really say its a simple, 
>painless, and quick process to transition from unstructured 
>framemaker to either structured or dita? 

They can say it, but it's unlikely to be true.  ;-)

The reason is simple.  In unstructured Frame, formats 
are "presentational" in nature.  You may use "Indented" 
for several different kinds of text, where all they 
have in common is the plain indentation.  That's usual;
why have different formats if there is no difference
in the applied formatting?

Structured designs, like DITA, have "elements" that
are "semantic" in nature.  They ignore presentation.
(Frame's EDDs are a hybrid.)  So there is usually no
simple mapping from formats to elements.  The info
needed to do that mapping is not in the format system;
it is in the mind of the author.  So you'll frequently
need to add information to the unstructured file to
guide the conversion process.  The alternative is to
do the fixup by hand after conversion, but that is
usually many times worse than doing it up front.

OTOH, once you do the conversion, you may well gain
enormous benefits, mainly with much improved single-
sourcing and re-use.  This is especially true when
localization is involved; the savings in the first
round of translations may pay for the entire process.

Not all structures are the same, and it's important
to choose the one that fits your docs best.  Often
this is DITA; for some, it may be DocBook.  You can
roll your own, but that is a very-high-cost route,
since you will have to build all your own tools too.
If you aren't a megacorp, forget it.  ;-)  Remember,
DITA was what came out when IBM rolled its own...
and the staffing required to do that was not small.

As to how to get there, start by learning all about
the structure you plan to use.  There are plenty of
resources about DITA, starting with the OASIS specs
and going on from there.  We think authors should be
very involved with the conversion process; they will
have to live with the results.  Start small and build.

For Frame, you can get an idea of conversion options
from a webinar that Sriptorium produced, that looks
at three methods:
    http://bit.ly/61MvPx
It starts with Frame's native conversion tables; the
Mif2Go part is at 33:15.  ;-)

Once you have converted to DITA (or DocBook), you
have a choice of editing tools, like oXygenXML,
XMetaL, Arbortext, XML Mind, and Frame.  If you
stick with Frame, you *must* have DITA-FMx to make
it work without major pain and hair loss:
    http://www.leximation.com/dita-fmx/

So a good way to start is by creating some new doc
content in DITA-FMx, to get into the DITA worldview.
There's a free demo version.

HTH!


-- Jeremy H. Griffith <jeremy at omsys.com>
   DITA2Go site:  http://www.dita2go.com/