Single Sourcing Deconstructed

STC Toronto – March 11, 2003
Presented by the Toronto Single-sourcing Special Interest
Group (SIG)

Single-sourcing Deconstructed
©March 2003 R.Hanna, B.Hills, M.Marques

About this presentation
 Single-sourcing Deconstructed
By Rob Hanna, Byron Hills, Michele Marques
©2003 – All rights reserved. No part of this presentation may be
reproduced without the written consent of one of the authors.
The authors assume no responsibility or liability for any errors on
inaccuracies within this presentation. Please write to
rob@ascan.ca.
Adobe FrameMaker and Acrobat are registered trademarks of
Adobe Systems Incorporated. Microsoft Word and Windows are
registered trademarks of the Microsoft Corporation. All other
trademarks are the property of their respective owners.


Welcome
 Introductions: Single-sourcing and our panel
 Process and Planning
 Creating Single-source Content
 Delivering Multiple Outputs
 Questions and Answers


Toronto Single-sourcing SIG
 Formed in September 2002
 Meet third Thursday of each month
 For more information visit http://www.stctoronto.org


Your panellists
 Moderator: Andrew Brooke
 Planning: Rob Hanna
 FrameMaker: Michele Marques
 Word: Byron Hills

Our Moderator: Andrew Brooke is a technical writer at
InSystems. Andrew is the Job Bank Manager and Volunteer
Manager for the Toronto STC chapter and writes “Career
Corner” for the chapter newsletter. He is an active member of
the Toronto Single-sourcing SIG.


Your panellists
Rob Hanna is a Senior Technical Communicator and proprietor
of ASCan Enterprises, a New Media development company.
Rob has over 12 years of professional communications
experience and 5 years in single-sourcing for IT documentation.
He is manager of the Toronto Single-sourcing SIG.

Michele Marques is a senior technical writer with Baxter
Corporation and an expert FrameMaker user. She is
membership manager and list coordinator for the STC’s Single-
Sourcing Special Interest Group (SIG) and a co-founder of the
Toronto Single-sourcing SIG.

Byron Hills is a senior technical writer with Verex Technologies.
For several years, Byron has been using various single-sourcing
techniques to deliver product information in print and online in
seven languages. He is a co-founder of the Toronto Single-
sourcing SIG and an active member of the Toronto Online SIG.


Single-sourcing overview
 Defining single-sourcing
 About this presentation
 Planning your single-sourcing project
 Creating structure


Working definitions
Single-sourcing is any process used to systematically
create information products from a single defined
source of information.
or
“Writing information once
and using it many times”
- Ann Rockley, 2001


Single-sourcing technology
Single-sourcing is a methodology, not a technology.
Although the software tools associated with single-
sourcing are complex, it is the modular writing, not
technology, that ultimately determines the success of
your single-sourcing project.
 Kurt Ament – Single Sourcing: Building Modular
Documentation, 2003


About this presentation
 Draw from Ann Rockley’s presentation
Planning
 Cover off three stages in delivering a
single-source project
 Use the résumé as an example Authoring

Delivery


Planning and process
 Defining your objectives
 Analysing your audience
 Defining your source and structure


What are our objectives?
 Key objectives include:
 Produce a résumé that is easy to update and tailor for each
new job application.
 Maintain various versions: Short/Long; Technical
Writer/Team Lead; Contractor/Employee.
 Maintain various formats including: Word, HTML, PDF, and
ASCII text.
 Showcase help authoring skills by producing a Windows
help version.


Can single-sourcing help?
 Single-sourcing will…
 Improve the consistency of information
 Save on maintenance and customization efforts
 Improve the quality of the content
 Require significant upfront planning and investment


Return on investment (ROI)
 Expect return on investment if…
 The document is deliverable to clients or is tied directly to a
product or service
 The document has a long life expectancy
 Many updates can be expected over time
 Several variants may exist at any one time
 Parts of the document are reused elsewhere
 I can expect to recover my actual costs


Who is my audience
 HR Department
 Placement Agency
 Hiring Manager
 Automated systems


Selecting a source
 Does a source already exist?
 Do multiple sources exist?
 How will you resolve discrepancies between various
sources?
 Create your definitive source of information


Building a structure
 Does a structure already exist?
 Does it require modification for single-sourcing?
 Take a linear document and make it modular
 Break the document into its component parts


Resume structure
 Resume title
 Skills
 Objective
 Target 1
 Skill name
 Target 2  Experience level
 Personal Profile  Last used
 Education  Years used
 School  References
 Location  Name
 Date  Position
 Degree  Company
 Professional Experience  Contact
 Company  E-mail
 Location  Telephone
 Position  Description
 Tasks
 Accomplishments


Creating single-source content
 Hiding and displaying single-source content
 Reorganising single-source content
 Special considerations
 What happens next


Hiding single-source content
 What to emphasize?
 Different jobs
 Different tasks
 Different education
 How?
 Applying conditional text


Conditional text
 Set up & apply tags


Conditional Text
 View all conditions


Conditional Text
 Show leadership condition


Conditional Text
 Show writing condition


Considerations
 Consistency is required for good output
 Consistent style of writing
 Consistent mark-up of conditions
 FrameMaker limitations
 Conditions for multiple purposes
 Text tagged with multiple conditions
 Cannot use conditional text to rearrange your content


Reorganizing content
 What is presented first?
 Education at top vs. Education at bottom

 How?
 Inserting files as content objects


Inserted text objects
 Content objects can be:
 Education
 Experience
 Objective


Inserted text objects
 Resume files contains content objects
Résumé 1 Résumé 2

Objective Objective

Education Work History

Work History Education


Considerations
 Consistency is required for good output.
 Planning decisions on how small are content objects.
 Planning decisions on whether headings go within
content object or within the document.
 Also influenced by desired outputs and those
limitations.


What Happens Now?
 Print different versions
 PDF different versions
 Use a tool to convert to Help, Web, etc.


Delivering multiple outputs
 Single-sourcing with Word
 Relevant features
 One example
 Single-sourced output


Single-sourcing with Word
 Word: Show of hands
 More useful than you may think
 What to expect
 What can we do with Word without VBA?


Single-sourcing with MS Word
Doc 2  Ball & Chain
.hlp
Data Source
Doc 1 vs. single-
Object a .pdf
sourcing
Object b Doc 3
.doc
Object c
Object d Linda Chung
Senior Technical Writer

123 Que en St E
Toronto, ON M4N 3R8
Tel 416 555-1212
Em linda.chung @lascan .ca
ail:

Objective
Towrite t wic as m uch docu mentatio n in half
e
the time.

Workflow Experience
Really Bi g Corp
Oct 99 - Present
Helped d evelop a single sou rcing pro jec that
t
lorem ipsum ad ve lor.

Sm En terprises
all
June 98 - Sep 99
Lorem ip sumad v elor dolot.

Sm En terprises
all

1 ton June 98 - Sep 99


Thinking about single-sourcing
 Word Features
 Master & sub documents
 Mail merge
 Links to a database
 Search & replace
 Auto-correct; AutoText
 Paragraph styles
 Templates (.dot)
 Bookmarks
 Fields for referencing information
 Macros and VBA (power, but with a learning curve)


Simulating variables in Word
 Search and replace placeholders
 Doc properties (incl. custom) link w/ fields
 “Ask" fields or a VBA form
 Real variables with VBA; link with fields


Simulating conditional text
 Search & hide (or delete) styles; or colours
 Hierarchical styles; set parent as hidden
 Sort tagged DB table, hide unused rows
 "IF" Fields


Different versions
 Search and replace folder names for different source files
 Rename different source files (e.g., for different
languages
 Search and replace bookmark names in inserted dummy
fields
 'IF' fields applying bookmarks per doc type


Change order of objects
 Output fields in sortable table;
 AutoText/AutoCompleted fields on-the-fly;
 'IF' fields applying bookmarks per doc type;
 Separate template w/fields for each doc;


Concept
 Sometimes using features together ends up being more
than the sum of 'parts'


One example
 AutoText shortcuts on-
DB.doc Resume1.doc the-fly, or
Contains Contains AutoText:
Bookmarked Include Text Fields  Template for each
Text
{Objective: to text}
{Bookmarked lead}
{Objective: to write}
version
[Objective:  Source data changes --
to lead]
write]
reflected in output
Resume2.doc
C on tai n s Au toT ex t:  Styles tied to output
I n clu d e T ex t F i eld s
documents
{ ObjObj ect i ve:wri te}
{ ect i ve: to to
lead }


Components in Some Detail
 DB.doc
 PDF.doc
 HLP.doc


HLP and PDF Samples
 HLP sample and PDF sample;
 Change some source data and rebuild outputs;


Single-sourcing with MS Word
Doc 2  Thinking out
.hlp
Doc 1 of the box
Object a .pdf
Object b Doc 3
.doc
Object c
Object d Linda Chung
Senior Technical Writer

123 Que en St E
Toronto, ON M4N 3R8
Tel 416 555-1212
Em linda.chung @lascan .ca
ail:

Objective
Towrite t wic as m uch docu mentatio n in half
e
the time.

Experience
Really Bi g Corp
Oct 99 - Present
Helped d evelop a single sou rcing pro jec that
t
lorem ipsum ad ve lor.

Sm En terprises
all
June 98 - Sep 99

Sm En terprises
all

1 ton June 98 - Sep 99


Questions
 Where do you see single-sourcing in 5 years?
 What is the difference between single-sourcing and
enterprise content management?
 Will the role of technical communicator change as a
result of single-sourcing?
 Questions from the floor?


References
 For more information
 http://www.stctoronto.org
 http://www.stcsig.org/ss/index.htm
 http://www.managingenterprisecontent.com


Single Sourcing Deconstructed

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

More from Rob Hanna, ECMs

More from Rob Hanna, ECMs (11)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Single Sourcing Deconstructed