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Lisa van Aswegen wonders: <<I am in the midst of a battle for conversion
over to XML from Corel Draw - yes, yes I know what on earth was the person
thinking when they created documentation in Corel Draw.>>
It happens. One of my authors creates these massive spreadsheets with the
docs embedded entirely in the spreadsheet.
<<the conversion of Corel Draw to XML is a task that is too time consuming
to do now. As a temporary measure, I want to take the document and create
an MS word document and then at a later date move over to XML.>>
Sounds like a reasonable plan. Get the important work done first (publish
those docs!), then add value (via XML) as time permits.
<<I am concerned about being able to track changes and versioning while my
documents are in MS Word and need some advice - if anyone knows of a product
that is a content management system for MS word documents?>>
The simplest solution that doesn't involve special software is to simply use
Word's "track changes" feature, which works extremely well if you're willing
to spend a few hours learning to use it. Before sending a document to the
next person in the review chain, simply save a dated backup copy of the file
in a backup directory. This way, you have a complete user-by-user backtrail
for a document and can return to the point before any revision quickly and
easily just by opening that file. Moreover, if you ensure that revision
tracking is turned on in the file, and everyone has their copy of Word
configured to list their name as the reviewer (Tools-->Options-->User info.
tab-->Enter name and initials), it's easy to see who did the edits.
Word also has a versioning feature ("Versions" under the File menu) that
stores each consecutive series of edits in the same file, each as a
different "version" rather than simply displaying all the edits together in
a single version. It works reasonably well, though I've heard enough
anecdotal evidence about its reliability that I don't trust it for important
work. That being said, we've been using it here (notmy choice) for a couple
of years with only a few suspicious incidents and no outright disasters. If
you choose that approach, make sure to keep good backups (see previous
paragraph). Moreover, you should periodically delete all the versions stored
in a file and resave it minus those revisions; for the truly paranoid (me,
for instance <g>), do a "save as" with a new file name after deleting the
revisions to be really sure you've cleared out any detritus.
Both these suggestions work perfectly well, but they're a bit kludgy and
lack some of the security and elegance of dedicated versioning software.
When you have more time, you may want to look into more sophisticated
content management solutions. Search the techwr-l archives for "content
management", "Visual Sourcesafe [Source Safe?]", and other similar terms.
There's been much discussion of this topic over the years, and you'll find
enough meat to give you a basis for more pointed questions.
--Geoff Hart, geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
(try ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca if you get no response)
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada
"I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my
telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my
telephone."--Bjarne Stronstrup (originator of C++ programming language)
NEED TO PUBLISH FRAMEMAKER CONTENT ONLINE? "Mustang" is a NEW single
sourcing tool for FrameMaker that lets you easily publish your content
online. No macro language required! http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l3
Mercer University's online MS Program in Technical Communication Management:
Preparing leaders of tomorrow's technical communication organizations today.
See www.mercer.edu/mstco or write George Hayhoe at hayhoe_g -at- mercer -dot- edu -dot-
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