Claire, we're definitely thinking along similar lines, both with what to do and what not to do. I hope I can find the time and energy to do some test runs over the next few days.
I think I'll start with a simple product-name field and then add some conditional sections or paragraphs for the things that are in one product (OOo) and not in the other (LO). Nothing complicated. Well... I don't think it's complicated. ;-) And thanks for mentioning the copyright info! That's a perfect candidate for a linked section. There are others, which will occur to me eventually. Some things (such as the content of headers and footers) update when the template is changed. --Jean On Sat, 2010-10-02 at 11:35 +0100, Claire Wood wrote: > I'd be interested in this, as having just started my new job, I'm finding > that there are practises that haven't been adopted in some areas of the > documents to limit the time that documents take to edit, that should have > been because the tools that are used have not been used to their full > potential. > > Variables are great for stuff like creating templates (using them in > headers, footers, for product names, copyright info). It would be good to > get something whereby stuff like product names, copyright info can be > changed in 1 place and it changes throughout the book, instead of going into > every chapter and changing the variable content. > > I tend to find conditional text is a nightmare unless everyone is singing > with the same hymn sheet, and it can get difficult to police, because it > demands strict policies to be followed. It only takes one person to leave > and it can throw the rest of the team into chaos. > > Chunking - again, how deep do you go? I'd suggest not getting silly by going > down to sentence and word. We've got a section at work that is a prime > candidate for chunking, but it's at chapter level. The same chapter is put > in every book, so I think it would work well for the introduction chapters > make up the Getting Started Guides. > > I'm pretty tired today as I'm in Liverpool after driving for 5 hrs, so if I > think of anything or find anything, I'll comment further. > > Claire > > On 2 October 2010 03:51, Jean Hollis Weber <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Some of you have said you are experienced technical writers. If anyone > > has experience with techniques for reusing common material, preferably > > using OOo's features (variables; conditional text, paragraphs, sections; > > etc.), please help me set up some methods and files and write the > > instructions for using them. > > > > We want to develop methods that can be used by contributors without > > detailed knowledge of how they work. TJ, Andrew, or other macro gurus > > should be able to set up the necessary post-processing once we've worked > > out what we're doing. > > > > Reusing material (such as PDF export) between books has been part of the > > plan for OOo, and on my personal priority list, for some time -- but it > > is now even more important and urgent for providing files that can most > > easily be reused for other flavors of OOo such as LibreOffice. > > > > Please no disgressions into how much better FrameMaker or some other > > tool is at doing this. Any tool that costs money is out, and any tool > > that isn't easily comprehended by the majority of volunteers is out (so > > no DocBook). OOo/LO is what we've got, and we should be using our own > > product anyway. > > > > Jean > > -- > > Jean Hollis Weber > > Co-Lead, OpenOffice.org Documentation Project > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
