-No Subject-

[Chet Ensign <Chet_Ensign%LDS -at- NOTES -dot- WORLDCOM -dot- COM>]

From:    Stephanie Goble <Stephaniex_goble -at- CCM -dot- CH -dot- INTEL -dot- COM>
Subject: Are You Converting Publications to Web Pages for a BIG Site?

Is anyone else working for a company that is putting their entire catalog
of public and private documents into a Web-accessible format?  What sort
of a process have you developed to cope with the volume of the start-up
conversions?
See http://www.intel.com and it's related pages for the starting effort,
and remember that there is as much information inside the firewall as
outside.

Are you going to distribute everything from press releases to user
manuals via the Internet?  And are the source files in a gazillion
formats?  And does management want it in HTML, PDF, http:// ftp:// and
full animation?

I would like to share information about what works, what doesn't work,
glitch fixes, and perhaps how to survive this kind of project with sanity
intact.

--

Our client wants several documents converted to HTML to be distributed
on the company side of the firewall.  The project is just starting.
The downside is that they want the info "dumped"--not properly
chunked and linked.

I would also like those who are converting manuals and other docs
to HTML to contribute to the thread.

LaVonna

---
Date:    Fri, 16 Jun 1995 09:27:07 -0400
From:    Ann Amsler <aamsler -at- BRAHMS -dot- UDEL -dot- EDU>
Subject: Re: Are You Converting Publications to Web Pages for a BIG Site?

At the University of Delaware, we're putting almost everything on line in
HTML.  In our experience, if you just "dump" something from the original
without breaking it up and including links, the document is useless.
Plus, this defeats the whole purpose of hypertext.  The process might go
more quickly, but why do it at all if the documents aren't useable?
Ann Amsler

Date:    Mon, 19 Jun 1995 08:20:04 -0600
From:    Cathy Luther <cluther -at- UNM -dot- EDU>
Subject: Re: Are You Converting Publications to Web Pages for a BIG Site?

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
---

Date:    Mon, 19 Jun 1995 20:33:48 GMT
From:    Nancy Hayes <nancyh -at- PMAFIRE -dot- INEL -dot- GOV>
Subject: Re: Are You Converting Publications to Web Pages for a BIG Site?

In article <199506161255 -dot- AA22113 -at- interlock -dot- halnet -dot- com>,
LaVonna Funkhouser  <lffunkhouser -at- halnet -dot- com> wrote:
>The downside is that they want the info "dumped"--not properly
>chunked and linked.

>I would also like those who are converting manuals and other docs
>to HTML to contribute to the thread.

We've been converting manuals and other documents to HTML for some time.
Right now, the process is mostly dumping the information out there w/
hypertext links for the "see" "per" and "GO TO" references.  It's better
than no hypertext.

Our lead programmer is working on a method to have the "translator"
program actually break the document into chunks, add the hypertext links,
and add most of the code.  It will be interesting to see how this works
out.  He's trying to make the translation process as painless as possible
(considering he'll be doing ninety percent of the work).

Basically, what we're trying to do is avoid the problem of having to
discrete documents (the paper and the online); automate everything to the
point that when a document change comes through, the online version also
gets changed; and set some other configuration controls.

Another thing we're =considering= is having the authors break things into
smaller files (master and subdocuments) so that we don't have to figure
out how to do the chunking.

Anyone have any ideas they've tried that have worked (or not worked--so
we know what to avoid)?

Nancy Hayes (nancyh -at- pmafire -dot- inel -dot- gov)



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