Single Sourcing: An Introduction

Many documentation departments produce detailed and well-designed paper documentation. Increasingly, however, one paper manual is not enough. Pressure is growing to deliver your information online, perhaps on several different user platforms. You may need to reuse the information in your manuals for quick reference guides, training courses and marketing publications. This can mean that you find yourself re-creating virtually identical content over and over again. Duplicating your material for multiple media, multiple uses and multiple audiences is time-consuming and costly.

Darley, Justin. Cherryleaf (2002). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Single Sourcing: Benefits to the Life Sciences  

Life sciences companies are experiencing many pressures including electronic initiatives like eSubmissions and the eCTD, regulatory controls like 21 CFR Part 11, and decreasing times to market. Life Sciences companies are looking for ways to improve the way they create and manage content. Developing reusable content (single sourcing) is one solution. This session looks at the benefits single sourcing can bring to the life sciences industry.

Rockley, Ann and Steve Manning. STC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Biomedical

Single-Source Content Management   

More and more businesses are expanding into international markets. A critical success factor for this expansion is high-quality, cost-effective and timely translated written content. Responsibility for this typically falls on internal translation departments or localization partners. Translation comes at a high price, exceeding the cost of writing the original content after only a few languages.

Trotter, Paul. tekom (2006). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Localization

Single-Source from the Reader's Point of View

Documentation written for single-sourcing (topic based, like that found in DITA) has great potential for efficiency. Writing once and publishing in many publications (Developer Guides, User Guides, etc.) and many formats (pdf, html, HTMLHelp, etc.) turns into cost and time savings. However, these efficiencies can cause inefficiencies for the users. Many online help users complain they cannot find the information they need while using the search function. Readers are more likely to comprehend texts with a classical book architecture, an architecture which is often sacrificed in single sourced documents and online Help files. When texts are cohesive, readers are more likely to consider information to be clear, well organized and easy to follow. For comprehensibility, it is essential to have a manual review, even when composing is partially automated.

Mulvihill, Teresa. LiveTechDocs (2008). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Audience Analysis

Single-Sourcing Tools and Techniques  

This paper describes how our publications team built a new single-sourced documentation set consisting of five printed manuals totaling 1,470 pages and seven Windows online help files totaling 7.5 megabytes. To accomplish this project, we used detailed writing guidelines, specially-designed templates, and a powerful online help authoring tool.

Hart, Jessica, Nola J. Hague and Diana Peh. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

So, What is a Content Management System?

A content management system (CMS) is critical to the success of almost every website and intranet, and yet many organisations are not familiar with this technology.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2003). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Structured Content: What's in it for Writers?

Everyone has heard (or experienced) stories of CMS or knowledge management initiatives that did not work because content contributors refused to use the tools deployed or were unwilling or unable to supply content in the format required. The conclusion often reached is that writers cannot give up their WYSIWYG tools and that any attempt to make them do so is doomed to failure. On the other hand there are always those who will reply with stories of systems where writers have successfully adapted to the use of XML or SGML, and the CMS is working well. All that is required to duplicate this success, they maintain, is that writers must be forced and/or trained to use the new tools.

Baker, Mark. CMSwatch (2002). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Writing

Ten Problems With Single Sourcing  

Though there have been numerous conference papers, articles, and books devoted to the topic of single sourcing, there have been fewer works about potential problems that should be identified before adopting a single-source documentation strategy. This study looks at ten specific problems (including issues of training, productivity, and morale) that can arise during the implementation of a mature single-sourcing model of documentation management. This list of problems, while not comprehensive, does provide some points of reference and a framework within which technical communicators can consider the implications of adopting a single-sourcing documentation model.

Yeats, Dave and Heather Hull. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Assessment

Tools and Technology: A Work-Flow Paradigm for Single-Source Publishing  

Today's organizations must consider the effect that new tools and technologies are having on work flow. Web technology has raised the importance of information. This change in the customer/supplier market is allowing the company with the best information to have an edge. It is our responsibility as communicators to find better, faster, and cheaper ways to distribute information. An effective work flow can accomplish this. In the most common work-flow scenarios, Web technology is placed on the back end of the production schedule. All of these scenarios are flawed in different ways. Solving Web work-flow problems requires a paradigm shift.

Christner-Vorhes, Jamie and Bill Pollak. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Workflow

Tools for Developing One Document for Both World Wide Web and Paper  

Printing from the Web is an unsolved, and often unrecognized, problem. Readers need hard copy for many documents they use online, but the Print command from a browser often does not meet their need. Other solutions are for the author to deliver printed documents, to deliver PostScriptJiles, and to deliver PDFJiles. In the nearfuture, Cascading Style Sheets may make the Print commandfrom the browser produce a more usable printed copy. For all of these solutions, the author needs a single source for the online and printed documents and converters for the output forms.

Jackson, Ken and Sonya E. Keene. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Transform a Single Source Into Many Designs  

When one layout just isn’t enough, you can easily tag your Adobe® InDesign® document and export the content to an XML file. Different InDesign templates and Adobe GoLive® dynamic Web pages can then import the XML file and repurpose the content. Say goodbye to copy-and-paste and hello to the future of publishing!

Adobe. Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Adobe InDesign

Understanding the CMS Marketplace

An important first step is to gain an understanding of the CMS marketplace. This briefing outlines a few of the practical ways of doing so.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2003). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Using 6 Sigma Methodology and Tools to Design and Implement a Single Source Documentation Process  

6 Sigma is a proven strategy to improve quality, economic value, and practical utility to the company and its customers.

Eichholz, Jeannette. STC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Using a Database and SGML to Build Single-Source Documents  

SGML and a database can make the document building process more efficient by focusing on data instead of formatting. A database with well-designed tables, forms for data input, and queries can help put a writer’s time to better use by allowing them to focus on content. Data can be reused from project to project by simply querying for topics to change and updating the contents. SGML is used for consistency, flexibility, reliability, and reusability. One of many possible processes of creating online and print documentation using a database and SGML is: (1) Choose a Document Type Definition. (2) Design the database. (3) Export data (queries) from the database as text file. (4) Up-translate a text file to an SGML instance. (5) Down-translate the SGML instance to the desired output.

Nguyen, Tins L. and Teresa A. Sharkey. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Using the Clustar Method for Single-Source Documentation  

Most technical communicators create materials that help users perform tasks. Such task-based manuals, help files, web pages, or training materials are often expensive and difficult to write and maintain. Frequently, this is the fault of poor structure and process. Simply Written’s Clustar Method makes it cheaper and easier to create and maintain task-based documentation by emphasizing structure and process.

Altom, Jerilynne and Tim Altom. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Using the Single-Source Wizards in RoboHELP 2000 for WinHelp

HTML Help is the Windows Help standard for 32-bit operating systems (for example, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, or Windows 2000). Your users must have Internet Explorer installed on their systems (or at least the necessary core components).

James-Tanny, Char. HelpStuff (2000). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>RoboHelp

Virtual Documents: The Challenges of Chunking

Beware the virtual document! It may look harmless. It certainly looks helpful. It will lure you with a siren's song of reusable content components that enhance flexibility and improve efficiency. And then, if you're not careful, it will smash you into pieces upon the rocky shores of complexity.

Morville, Peter. Semantic Studios (1999). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Web Books: Publishing Large Scientific and Technical Documents Simultaneously on the World Wide Web and on Paper  

That we need to write separate documents for on-line display and the printed page is a technical writers’ axiom, but using a single source has practical advantages. Tools that enable you to write and print with a desktop-publishing program and automatically convert to an on-line format make writing and maintenance easier and keep information consistent. FrameMaker serves as a useful and widely-used desktop-publishing package and WebMaker converts FrameMaker sources to HTML for the World Wide Web.

Jackson, Ken and Sonya E. Keene. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

What's the Best Content Management System? It Depends...

There are a dizzying number of systems on the market that are or can be referred to as Content Management Systems. Determining which content management system is right for you starts with an understanding of the different types of systems and the range of functionality available. Analyzing your needs is critical to selecting the right system.

Manning, Steve. Rockley Bulletin (2004). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Why Every Small Website Needs a Content Management System

While the web design house did a great job, you don't want to have to go back to them for every change.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2003). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Why Single-Source when you can Multi-Source?

Single-sourcing allows authors to re-use content in different deliverables. This article explores using XML and a CMS (content management system) to take a different approach--multi-sourcing.

KeyContent.org (2006). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Why Start with Analysis and Design?

One of the most common mistakes that we see is a company picking the tool first, then trying to make their content management requirements fit the functionality of the tool. However, analysis of why projects fail identifies that one of the main reasons for failure is lack of analysis and design. This article draws on recent literature to identify the main reasons for why content management projects fail and provides some possible solutions.

Rockley, Ann. Rockley Bulletin (2004). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

XML and Content Management Systems

This article explores the role of XML in the context of content management systems, focusing specifically on the business issues.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2003). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>XML

XML and Single-Sourcing with FrameMaker, Word, InDesign, XMLSpy, and More!  

Getting software to cooperate reduces the amount of editing you need to do, and creates better documents.

Aschwanden, Bernard. STC Region 7 Proceedings (2003). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing