TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Where I work (a medical publisher) we have a program called XyWrite,
which saves text files in SGML-compatible format. In this program, we
have a function called "compare" that allows you to see a document's
editing changes--both what was there before and what the replacement
or change is. This is extremely useful, and the compare files are
regularly printed out and sent to authors to show them what changes
have been made. The compare file is created from a system comparison
of the original and edited version of the file.
The downside is that our version of this program has not been updated
since 1988 (!!!). It runs on a DOS platform. I think some of it might have
been custom-programmed for our company. I gather our company's
attitude is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." (I rewrote the ancient in-house
manual for this program last year. ) On the off chance that anyone might
be interested, please contact me off list.
