Adobe InDesign for Single Source Publishing?
March 25, 2006
I posted the following to the TECHWR-L list today, and thought I would also post here in case any of you have thoughts about this. Please comment or email me if you have ideas.
I have a client that will be using Adobe InDesign for their documentation. I say “will be” because the decision has already been made for a variety of reasons, so the mission now is to figure out how to support them in this effort. A few points:
—It’s a small group. One writer and one editor, supported by a graphic designer who will create the templates.
—Their total volume of documentation is probably a few thousand pagea a year, much of it updates and custom versions of one key deliverable (user documentation for software that runs as both client-server (Windows and Mac) and Web-based.
—They will be using a workflow solution, WoodWing, that will allow the authoring to be done in InCopy, with the templates being maintained by the designer using InDesign.
The print output is straightfoward, but my concern is output to Help without too many manual steps by the small team. From reading the archives, it appears there is no tool that directly supports InDesign-to-Help output, but there are two indirect options:
—Use the XML capabilities in InDesign and InCopy to produce XML output that could than be transformed into Help.
—Produce a PDF file or files that could then be ingested by one of the Help tools (preferences or recommendations here? They use RoboHelp with MS Word now, but are not committed to it) I am assuming this approach means the PDF file needs to have enough hooks, links, etc., in it to make the transformation to Help automatic.
Do I seem to have captured the state of the art? Does anyone have any experience, recommendations, etc? Also, if you are a consultant who does this kind of work, I would be interested in hearing from you offlist.
Many thanks in advance.
Posted by Bill Trippe at March 25, 2006 1:16 PM
