Single Sourcing - An Introduction
By Justin Darley, January 2003. Contact us if you would like a PDF version of this article.
We asked the consultants at Cherryleaf for tips on implementing a single sourcing solution. You can get these tips free.
Summary
Many documentation departments produce detailed and well-designed paper documentation. Increasingly, however, one paper manual is not enough. Pressure is growing to deliver your information online, perhaps on several different user platforms. You may need to reuse the information in your manuals for quick reference guides, training courses and marketing publications. This can mean that you find yourself re-creating virtually identical content over and over again. Duplicating your material for multiple media, multiple uses and multiple audiences is time-consuming and costly.
Single sourcing offers a solution to this problem by allowing you to output each document in many different formats, but only store and work with a single version.
Part 1 covers :
- Provides an introduction to the benefits of single sourcing
- Summarises the obstacles to successfully completing a single source project
- Outlines some single sourcing strategies and writing techniques
Part 2:
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