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Our authorizing environment is Word + SmartDocs + heavily customized template suite. Some help authoring tools have all of these built in.
Hope it's clearer now.
Erika
-----Original Message-----
From: robert -dot- lauriston -at- gmail -dot- com [mailto:robert -dot- lauriston -at- gmail -dot- com] On Behalf Of Robert Lauriston
Sent: 07 July, 2014 21:02
To: Erika Yanovich; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: user expecttations - web-based help
I'm confused. What did you mean by "authoring environment" when you said "I noticed that most help authoring systems have features that we already use in our authoring environment (such as single sourcing and conditional text) and I'm not sure it's a good idea to pay for them again"?
On Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 11:59 PM, Erika Yanovich <ERIKA_y -at- rad -dot- com> wrote:
> 1. What help authoring tools do you already own?
> None
>
> 2. Is this a new project from scratch or an update for one for which somebody already set up help generation from Word source?
> No help generation process in place, the text is a new version of an existing manual, previously delivered as PDF.
>
> 3. What format was the help last time (.hlp, .chm, other)?
> This will be the first time.
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 7:25 AM, Erika Yanovich <ERIKA_y -at- rad -dot- com> wrote:
>> Dear all,
>>
>> It's been a while since we've prepared help files and we now need to make them again. What do users expect these days? Any good examples out there? We only need to prepare web-based help for one SW product that will reside on the customer's server. Versions are released quarterly. No need for PDF or other output.
>>
>> Does it make sense to continue authoring in Word and convert, or author in a help authoring tool? I noticed that most help authoring systems have features that we already use in our authoring environment (such as single sourcing and conditional text) and I'm not sure it's a good idea to pay for them again.
>
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Doc-To-Help 2014 v1 now available. SharePoint 2013 support, NetHelp enhancements, and more. Read all about it.
