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Abstract:
It all comes down to managing and reusing source. Recycling content (chapters, graphics, etc.) is not
new. What is new here is the common set of back-end structure in XML form and the fact that more
than one set of tools ? including small, mission critical custom tools ? are explicitly focused on the
specific needs of a given project.
Reusing and repurposing content is all about improving efficiency: automating, accelerating, and
merging applications, systems, and processes. In a multichannel publishing environment, it is critical
that content development ? source development ? and its management are as efficient as possible.
At its base, we're talking about reusing authored source content chunks. This means modular writing,
link management, and metadata to control variable content within a book, across books, across releases
or product lines, or across audiences. Multichannel publishing adds yet another dimension to the
content.
Stylesheets are one method for controlling multichannel publishing. They can operate on data
contained within the source content or provided by external information. Stylesheet authoring and
design can benefit from the same modular writing strategies used for content development. Stylesheets
can also be modularized, improving maintenance across publishing channels.
What happens when you decide to include the data leveraged from engineering and business systems?
How do you maintain the same strategies with generated content? Should you even try? Content can be
generated directly from software source code (API library files, man pages, error messages), business
systems (bug databases, project management systems, legal), and engineering data files (CAD data,
diagnostics). But how can this data be efficiently integrated into a multichannel environment?
How do you determine guidelines for content reuse in all these situations? It comes down to the
intersection content reuse and effort reduction. CAN you do it? Maybe. Do you WANT to? That
depends a lot on who is answering the question and why they?re motivated to do it at all (or
unmotivated, sometimes). SHOULD you? That?s the hard one. It always comes down to cost versus
benefit. This presentation will focus on the point where these intersect.
This presentation will serve people already working in documentation and single-sourcing
environments the tools to determine the answers to these question ? "what gets done?" and "how far to
go?" up front. For people in engineering and project management, it will help them understand what
benefits their organizations can gain through efficiencies gained at the places that their systems
intersect the others. Together, understanding repurposing and reusing content in can save people a lot
of wasted effort, time, and money because it eliminates the problem of "invisible assumptions."
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