Approach and estimation for a cleanup/conversion product - Word docs to FM and OLH

["Tammy Van Boening" <info -at- spectrumwritingllc -dot- com>]

All,

 

A client has just approached me with a request for a ballpark (+/- $5000)
estimate of a cleanup/conversion project. In a nutshell, the materials that
I am inheriting:

 

1.)   Three separate product lines - desktop based  and each with a
corresponding web component

2.)   Each product line has as a User's guide of approximately 200 pages and
a Configuration guide of approximately 200 pages for the desktop piece and a
QRG for the web component at approximately 50 pages.

3.)   EVERYTHING is in Word without the benefit of a template or styles -
all overridden normal.

 

The client wants each guide and each QRG converted to Framemaker with the
same look and feel and "chunking" approach that I provided for a different
product line in a previous project and along the way, it also means (as we
both know it will), a thorough clean-up and scouring of the current content
(lots and lots of extra verbiage, poor wording, bad grammar/syntax) without
truly rewriting the content and the client wants an online help system for
each product as well. The OLH will not be context-sensitive, so we are
looking at 9 guides and 6 OLH systems (1 for each desktop application and 1
for each web-based application.)

 

If I had the luxury of having Word documents that used styles, I was hoping
to involve a copy and paste into a Framemaker document with identical style
names and then running a Framescript for a cleanup and use the FM documents
to single source for OLH, but. . . . 

 

I know that there are many gurus and guru-esses out on the list who have run
into this issue - of that I am sure - and any and all advice about how to
approach this conversion/what techniques to use so that I could give a
better than "ballpark average" figure on the estimate would be so
appreciated. 

 

Thanks!

 

 

Tammy Van Boening

Owner/Principal

Spectrum Writing, LLC

email: info -at- spectrumwritingllc -dot- com

web: www.spectrumwritingllc.com

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help  
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices.
http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/

Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/

---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- 

To unsubscribe send a blank email to 
techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/archive%40web.techwr-l.com


To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com

Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/ for more resources and info. 

Please move off-topic discussions to the Chat list, at:
http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/listinfo/techwr-l-chat