Re: Multiple versions of same manual

[Gretchen Ackerman <glt -at- ICONOVEX -dot- COM>]

I've used *character* styles in Word to mark text that doesn't apply to all
flavors of the product.  When it's time to create the help file (I use
Doc-to-Help) or to print the manual for a particular flavor, I make a copy
of the "master" manual that contains info for all the flavors. Then I run a
macro that searches for the text in the character styles that I don't want
included and removes the text.  While I haven't done it with the macros I
wrote, I would imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to have the macro
search for and "hide" text in certain character styles rather than remove
the text from document.

My manuals are pretty small and there aren't too many differences among the
different flavors.  I don't know that this technique would be a good
solution for a large manual and/or for a product where there are
significant differences in the various flavors.

Reply to me directly if you'd like more details!

Gretchen


hm chou wrote:
> setup: a product i am working on comes in three flavors -- Local,
> Networked, and Enhanced Networked. i wrote a manual for what has ended up
> being the Enhanced Networked product ...
> now that it's 3 separate but similar products, i'm being asked to
> create a separate Local manual and Network manual ...
> it's a fairly messy job, since many of the features intertwine
> throughout the three different products.

> question: is there a way to print the 3 manuals w/out actually having to
> write 3 separate manuals? ...
> is there a way to tag sentences and paragraphs as belonging to one manual
> and not another (like BUILDTAGS in WinHelp), and during printing, enable
> or disable these tags? and lastly, is there a way to do this in Word 97
> (blah!)?


--------------------------
Gretchen Ackerman
Senior Technical Writer
Iconovex Corporation
glt -at- iconovex -dot- com