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

[LW White]

Having converted tens of thousands of pages, my opinion is that there is no entirely simple, painless and quick way to transition. Some of the things that other responses have mentioned can make the process simpl*er* and quick*er* but I doubt there will ever be a push-button-voila-we're-done solution. Even if you do get a smooth conversion from unstructured to structured as far as the mechanics, odds are some material will still need to be rewritten or reorganized. Authors writing in an unstructured environment rarely, if ever, write using a flow that naturally falls into a structure and so there is usually a post-conversion need to reorg. Of course, a content audit and rewrite before the conversion will mitigate much of that, but you just move some work from downstream to upstream.

I will also say, without hesitation, that converting from unstructured to structured is absolutely time well-spent. If your content is a good candidate for structure (and not all is), you will never regret the time and effort you put into the conversion.

Best,
Leigh



-----Original Message-----
From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com
[mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Matt Sullivan
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2010 3:24 PM
To: 'Joseph Lorenzini'; 'FrameMaker Forum'
Subject: RE: Structuring documents (was RE: Adobe's New Corporate
Strategies)
 
 
<from earlier post>
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? 
 
Sincerely,
Joseph Lorenzini 		 	   		  
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