"a controlled structured environment"... Mmmm.... Wouldn't that be nice! I really enjoyed working with Frame in my last job, and I'd love to explore the whole XML-y thing, the whole concept really appeals to me. Maybe in the next job. For now I'm stuck with Word, and it SUCKS!!!! (Though I must admit I do tend to concentrate on the things it does badly, it actually does do a lot of stuff really well). -----Original Message----- From: HALL Bill [mailto:bill.hall@xxxxxxxxx]=20 Sent: Friday, 8 August 2003 10:43 AM To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [austechwriter] Re: Can anyone help with some numbers? Elizabeth, Of course Word sucks when you are trying to use it to author and link structured knowledge - it is a paper format oriented authoring system that allows you to do anything you want to the appearance of text on a page. The solution is to switch to a proper structured authoring system based on SGML or XML.=3D20 Yes they are difficult and more or less costly (depending on your requirements) to set up in the first place, but once this is done and you have made the decision to separate formatting from authoring content, any content author can be trained to use a system like FrameMaker in a day or two (followed by a week or two of hand holding) because the only thing they are allowed to do is determine the logical structure of the document (within the constraints of the DTD/Schema) and type text. Content author productivity is increased by 50 to 100% in a controlled structured environment because they no longer have the opportunity to fuss with formats. With some work at the template level, you can give the authors a WYSIWYG environment so they can see what they are writing will look like - but they can't tinker with it. Also, if your delivery requirements change, you can change the presentation style without the need to do anything with the content. Added to that, the structured environment facilitates single sourcing, content reuse and repurposing, various kinds of automated quality control, etc. I still use Word or Front Page for my own writing because the applications are provided to me at no cost, I keep my documents simple and can avoid most of their pitfalls, and because my readers can read them at any stage in the authoring cycle. On the other hand, we have or are moving our mission-critical authoring of deliverable documents into structure authoring environments (still all SGML). Eventually, I will find a tool that I can even use for my casual and administrative writing - when I will be very happy to see the end of MS Word. Regards, Bill Hall Documentation Systems Analyst Head Office, Engineering Tenix Defense Williamstown, Vic. 3016 Phone: 03 9244 4820 Email:bill.hall@xxxxxxxxx URL: http://www.tenix.com Honorary Research Fellow Knowledge Management Lab School of Information Management & Systems Monash University Caulfield East, Vic. 3145 Phone: 03 9903 1883 Email: william.hall@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx URL: http://www.sims.monash.edu.au/research/km/ =3D20 ************************************************** To post a message to austechwriter, send the message to austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx To subscribe to austechwriter, send a message to austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "subscribe" in the Subject field. To unsubscribe, send a message to austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe" in the Subject field. 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