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

[Ed]

Matt-

People are asking why it's so hard to convert. My point is that for many
solo writers, it's hard to propose a conversion to management, and get
buy-in, especially when there's doc to write that's currently being
delivered just fine in their eyes.

To successfully convert unstructured content to a structure, you need:

An expert to create an EDD and/or DTD.
An expert in XSL to create output.
An expert to map your current styles to elements.
An expert to help you update your content to shoe-horn into the new XML
'buckets'.
An expert to train those who are going to be using the new tools. 

Now, that could be one person, or a team. However, it's still someone else
that needs to be paid. 

It doesn't take a team to upgrade from Word to Frame. Converting to CHM has
been mostly a one-button operation for years. If you want WebHelp, all you
need is some HTML and CSS knowledge and a copy of a HAT. Once Pagemaker came
around, it made publishing easier. Once Dreamweaver and FrontPage came
around, it made creating web pages easier. Converting to structure may never
get that easy, but it's gotta get easier than it is now.
-=Ed.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matt Sullivan [mailto:matt at grafixtraining.com]
> Sent: Friday, April 30, 2010 3:42 PM
> To: 'Ed'; 'Bernard Aschwanden (Publishing Smarter)'; 'Alison Craig';
> 'FrameMaker Forum'
> Subject: RE: Structuring documents (was RE: Adobe's New Corporate
Strategies)
> 
> The question isn't/wasn't whether or not to structure...that decision is
> based on (among other things):
> -number of authors
> -level of reuse
> -need to enforce content model
> -need to pass content between one organizational group and another
> 
> If the powers that be decide there is an ROI to structure, then that's
what
> you'll do.
> 
> Once that decision is made, as with any software or format conversion,
there
> will be a conversion of legacy docs to the new format.
> 
> As noted by myself, Bernard, and others, the ease of conversion to XML or
> DITA is mostly dependent on the quality of the legacy docs and their
> consistency in applying a stylesheet.
> 
> If I were asked to convert docs to a format I'm not expert in, I'd expect
a
> major headache. So should someone without XML, DITA, or DTD experience if
> they want to do this by themselves.
> 
>  However, relatively speaking, the pain of XML and DITA conversion is not
> appreciably greater than any other conversion, if you are going to retain
> full use of references, toc's, linking, graphics, etc.
> 
> As you can see, from various posts, there are folks that can help. It's
not
> our place to tell you (without analysis)whether or not to structure but we
> can effeciently and economically help with that transition.
> 
> 
> -Matt
> 
> ________________________________
> 
> Matt Sullivan
> GRAFIX Training
> 
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