atw: Re: Duplicating material in procedures [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

I've done this in FrameMaker with conditional formatting, not in Word,
so I don't know how well it would work in Word, but you could use
different styles for the different document content, and change the
style defs to hidden for the ones that you don't want to print. That way
all the info would be in one place, but different outputs.

You may have to modify families of styles, I guess.

When I was doing it in Frame, I would colour the text for each of the
outputs, so I could see which bits I was working on - and change the
defns to black for printing. The common text would just be in black and
wouldn't need hiding, obviously.



Regards

Elizabeth Fullerton
Business Solutions Architect
Infosys Australia
Tel: +61 3 9911 3355
Fax: +61 3 9911 3407
www.infosys.com <http://www.infosys.com/> 
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________________________________

From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Silcock, Howard
DR
Sent: Thursday, 15 December 2005 1:03 PM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: Duplicating material in procedures [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]


Hi Melanie

Yes, I didn't mention in my post that I'd toyed with the idea of using
Word's bookmark fields (eg  { BookmarkName }) to cross-reference the
information, meaning that you need only make changes in one place. I
decided against it this time, however, as the developers may be working
on the document again, and it's difficult enough even to get them to
respect fields holding version numbers - these are meant to be stored in
document properties and inserted using fields, but I find that my good
friends the developers just overtype the fields and defeat the purpose
of their existence. I was afraid that whole paragraphs of text that are
actually field results would confuse them far too much!

In an XML document I guess it might be different, as the document
structure would probably be more apparent to anyone working on it and
you wouldn't be using XML if you didn't have these kinds of tricks in
mind. (Yes, I know anyone can easily inspect the fields in a Word
document too, but it seems people just don't expect them to be present
or used that way or understand why they're there.)

So for me the option of the more intelligent solution you're suggesting
just wasn't viable!

Howard

        -----Original Message-----
        From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Melanie Kendell
        Sent: Thursday, 15 December 2005 12:13
        To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
        Subject: atw: Re: Duplicating material in procedures
[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]


        Hi Howard

        From the writer's perspective duplication is bad - more work,
more chance of error, divergence, etc.

        From the reader's perspective you are right, they only want to
see stuff that works for them and not to have to go from pillar to post
to get to it.

        So, what you do is single source the common material but output
the two versions in the publication - what editor are you using? You can
do this with includetext fields in Word or text inserts in FrameMaker.
Or, if you were using XML... :)

        -Melanie



        On 15/12/05, Silcock, Howard DR <Howard.Silcock@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

                I'm currently editing some procedures that have a large
amount of common
                material. The two procedures are designed to produce the
same outcome
                but are used in different circumstances. (You follow one
for making an
                update from a CD/DVD and the other for doing it over the
network.)
        
                My first thought, when I realised that there were so
many completely
                identical steps in these procedures, was to strip out
all the common
                steps and put them in one place, then direct the reader
there when he or
                she reaches the appropriate point in either procedure.
        
                This has obvious advantages from the writer's
perspective. It makes it
                much easier to maintain and keeps down the overall
length of the
                document. Also, in this case at least, it avoids
repeating the same
                screenshots twice each in the document - and hence
having a list of
                figures that contains quite a few duplicate captions.
        
                Yet as soon as I thought about it from the reader's
perspective I
                realised that there were advantages in keeping it as it
is, with all the
                duplicated text and figures. The reader will probably
only need to look
                at one of the procedures - why should she or he care
what's in the
                other? And who wants to jump around in a document to
find out what to
                do? The bulk of the document could be a disadvantage in
some cases, but
                in this case the document is actually only fairly short
anyway. The
                important thing is to make it easy for the reader to
find what he or she
                wants, then be able to follow it through without too
much unnecessary
                page-flipping.
        
                I believe strongly that our job as writers or editors is
to make life
                easy for the reader, even at the cost of extra work for
ourselves. But,
                on the other hand, I also recognise that extra work for
us can make more
                room for mistakes, which could make the reader's life
even harder in the
                end.
        
                Has anyone else grappled with this issue?
        
                Howard
        
        
                ==================================
                       Howard L. Silcock
                        Technical Writer
                    Common Services SOE Program
                Network Infrastructure Development
                       Department of Defence
                         (02) 626 58395
                ==================================
        
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