Re: Are You Converting Publications to Web Pages for a BIG Site?

[Cathy Luther <cluther -at- UNM -dot- EDU>]

What a wonderful thread.  May I suggest that anyone responding include
your URL for us to look at.

The publications office here is in the midst of converting all our
computer documentation (about 80-90 documents right now) that we write for
the university community to HTML.  We are placing the entire document on
line for clients who want to print it out; but any original that had a
staple in the corner also gets a table of contents which makes links to
each subsection and, where necessary, to subsections.  We also have a
"ToC" link at the end of each section to take the viewer back to the
beginning of the document. This is for our shorter documents and some
tutorials (the latter because the ToC still allows quick maneuvering
through the document, even though it is long.  We also have a link at the
end of every document that takes the view back to the main index of
documents, all of which are already indexed by subject.

We have a couple of manuals that we may or may not put on line.  One on
the Internet probably will go to HTML and I suspect that each chapter
will be a file with links between.  This way, those who like paper, or
want a printout, can still get their product; but the online advocates
can move through a document quickly.

There are some internal links between documents, but we have not yet made
links from words to other documents.  That comes later.

We are still in the testing/experimenting phase but you can visit us at
http://techedit.unm.edu.  We have some header graphics.

We are working on Macs.  Our documents were done in Quark and we use a
converter, qt2www which works sometimes and doesn't at others.  We've
converted our screen captures through Graphics Converter and that has
worked.

The entire UNM Web system is undergoing change every day, so the usual
Internet disclaimer of fast-moving documents and links still applies but
our office is operating off our own server, so the address should
hold.

We have found the one problem we do have is that each time we find a
problem or a solution to a problem we don't yet recognize, that we hve to
go through everything (well, almost everything) and systematically make
changes.  but that, I guess, is the nature of everything new.

The project has and is challenging to everyone here.  We are having a
grood time, and would appreciate any comments for you.

I look forward to other additions to this thread.


Cheers,

Cathy
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Catherine Luther
CIRT/IRC
University of New Mexico
Snail Mail: 2701 Campus Blvd. NE
            Albuquerque, NM  87131
Email: cluther -at- unm -dot- edu