Single-sourcing became popular technical communication practice in the 1990s, as technical communicators' professionalism (and salaries) increased and the costs of documentation production rose. Single sourcing reuses information from manuals in quick reference guides, training courses and marketing publications. This can mean decreased costs for writing, translation, illustration and document design, but requires specific expertise and software. Today, single-sourcing is often seen as closely related to content management.
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A Publisher's Journey to Single Source Publishing: A Case Study
We will cover the journey taken by J. J. Keller & Associates, Inc, a safety and regulatory compliance publisher, as they transitioned to an XML-based, single source publishing environment.
Jung, Jennifer and Mark Jacobson. XML 2006 (2006). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Case Studies
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Single Sourcing with Flare: Best Practices
In this session, attendees will learn how to use MadCap Flare to develop multiple documents and/or online help systems from a single project and how to share content across multiple projects. Learn how to create multiple online help systems and/or print documents from the same content. Learn how to reuse content developed in multiple applications. Learn how to reuse content in multiple topics and across multiple projects.
Deloach, Scott. STC Proceedings (2009). Presentations>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Madcap Flare
#34704
There are obvious benefits to single sourcing, the ones that roll off the tongue the minute single source is mentioned: multi-format publishing, consistency of information, quicker updates of common content, lowering translation costs and so on. But beyond all those, what else is there? In this guest blog post, Gordon McLean discusses just that.
McLean, Gordon. DMN Communications (2009). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Documentation
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How to Implement Single Sourcing: Interview with Neil Perlin
Neil Perlin, a renowned trainer, consulter, and developer, talks about how to implement single sourcing. He includes a discussion of tools, pitfalls to avoid, and practical steps to take.
Johnson, Tom H. and Neil E. Perlin. I'd Rather Be Writing (2006). Articles>Interviewing>Single Sourcing>Audio
#35053
Understanding the Value of Modular Content Reuse by Examining User-Generated Music Mashups
In the field of technical communication, practitioners are being challenged to adapt to a completely new approach to creating documentation and user-assistance materials. In this rapidly-changing arena, traditional content production practices are being replaced with modular, topic-based content production practices that allow organizations to recombine content elements—often automatically or on-demand—into new, derivative products.
Content Wrangler, The (2009). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Audio
#35452
Preparing Anchored Frame for Conversion in RoboHelp
When FrameMaker content containing Anchored Frame is imported to RoboHelp, the Anchored Frame is converted to corresponding image in generated XHTML content. The quality of generated images has been an area of concern. While some users are satisfied with the quality of images generated, others feel the scope of improvement in the image quality. This blog describes some of the best practices and workflows that will help obtain improved quality of generated images. In other words, it will allow users to maintain the original quality of source images generated through specialized image editing applications.
Adobe (2009). Articles>Documentation>Single Sourcing>Adobe FrameMaker
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Conditional Text and InDesign CS4
InDesign has always supported the use of layers, but layers don’t always cut it when working with text. You can put a text frame on a layer and turn that layer on and off as needed, but it’s an all or nothing approach. What if you want to show and hide individual words or paragraphs and have the text automatically rewrap when you show or hide those words? With conditional text, it’s a breeze.
White, Terry. Layers Magazine (2009). Articles>Document Design>Single Sourcing>Adobe InDesign
#35490
Wikis and the Holy Grail of Content Independence
The concept of having control over your help content, to update it at any time, is what I’m calling content independence. Establishing content independence in your publishing environment may be a battle that can take years. For example, at a previous job, it took five years to finally convince architecture that we needed and deserved our own independent folder on a production server. In my current situation, I’ve pursued publishing routes in infrastructure that would enable on-the-fly updating, but for two years in a row I’ve come up empty-handed. With wikis, I think I’ve finally found the holy grail of content independence.
Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2009). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Wikis
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Single Sourcing Help Content for Software Manuals 
Mohr details a method by which you can single-source content from an online help system to produce a manual for the same software application.
Mohr, Robert P. Intercom (2009). Articles>Single Sourcing>Documentation>Help
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Unconditional Text is the result of three three technical writers with varied backgrounds from across the globe coming together to share their knowledge and experiences with the community.
#35711
Why I Wasn’t Sold on Single Sourcing (and Why I’m Changing My Mind) 
Historically, I haven’t been a big fan of single sourcing content because I hate it when the content of the manual is exactly the same as the online help. But I’m changing my mind about single sourcing content. It’s about serving up different combinations of information to meet different audiences’ needs.
Minson, Benjamin. Gryphon Mountain (2009). Articles>Single Sourcing
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The Reason I Haven’t Embraced Single Sourcing
The field of technical writing is making a push toward single-sourced content. This involves authoring in one place and being able to chuck the content into different formats, such as help systems and manuals. It’s supposed to make things better for content management, as well as for localization because you have only one set of content that has to be translated. I personally haven’t bought off on this yet.
Minson, Benjamin. Gryphon Mountain (2008). Articles>Single Sourcing
#35801
The Myth of Single-Source Authoring
Single-source publishing is a zombie idea that revives itself periodically and refuses to stay dead. Its zombie supporters chant its purported benefits as a “write once, publish to many” promise and ploddingly follow it as their ultimate goal for mechanized authoring and machine translation. As an object-oriented writing methodology, it is as human as present-day robot technology—good only for conveyor belt assembly or specialized tasks, and always very expensive to implement. Single-source publishing lacks purpose in today’s world of information turnover and the dynamic nature of the Web 2.0 moving to Web 3.0 landscape.
Hiatt, Michael. Mashstream (2009). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Writing
