Re: Robohelp vs. Dreamweaver

["Ned Bedinger" <doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Neumann, Eileen" <ENeuman -at- franklintempleton -dot- ca>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 07, 2004 8:25 AM
Subject: RE: Robohelp vs. Dreamweaver



>I hadn't considered the version control problem - (I was focusing on
>the way word docs look kind of silly on the Web, and usability is lower).
>Seems to lock a doc, you must remember each doc's password?
>Disadvantage would be a need to manage the passwords.
>Advantage - version control.

Yes.  I think most users will conceded that a password-protected document
is well-protected from change, so it does provide a way to ensure that Word
documents are authentic. You could make this work, but you might end up with
inefficiencies such as spending more time opening Word documents
to see if they're locked.  If your workload is such that this isn't an
issue, fine.  My
feeling is that deadlines force a lot of rushing around, with abundant
opportunities
to lose track of such things.

It seems to me that there are easier distribution schemes that give you this
(secure
documents) for free, and that is what I think you need to replace Word
document
downloads.  I suggest you keep Word documents as your source files, and
distribute
your work in a derivative form that is easily distinguished from your source
files.
In doing so, you gain housekeeping advantages (no clutter of Word docs to
keep
straight) while also forwarding your goal of eliminating the problem of
unauthorized
versions.

A secure HTML server can give you these things, but if you distribute Word
docs
from a web server, you're back where you started.  You could convert Word
docs
to markup language, but that would be a fool's errand, IMO.  I'm not aware
of any
tools that do this without the attendant need for major and minor cleanup of
the
output.

The best practice I am aware of is to render the document to pdf format
with Adobe Acrobat. There are numerous advantages to distributing pdf
instead of a Word document, with stability topping the list.  When
configured
correctly on a stable machine, you can release any document in pdf format,
and
anyone downstream of you will have to make a very deliberate effort to
modify it . Your releases will be reasonably secure, and you can distriibute
pdf
files online through web sites or by email as attachments.

Stability also (especially) means that a pdf file is independent of the Word
templates and settings of the machine it is displayed on.  People see the
formatting
and layout of pdf as published, without all of the variability that comes
with displaying
Word docs in viewers or on individual Word configurations. I can't recall an
instance where
a pdf file caused anything like the problems I've seen in distributing Word
files.

>>> is there something good that I don't know about in posting Word docs
>>>online, vs. > HTML?


>> The key is to distribute documents with the read-only attribute locked

Hope this helps.

Ned Bedinger
doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com


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