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Hi All
Currently evaluating RH (paln to use XHTML editor for source and targets will be WebHelp, hopefully with RH Server and export to Word for manual). We have a suite of 17 apps and will use a master project and child projects for each app. Got that all setup and my master pages, etc. Export to word looks pretty good.
I have about 20 content providers (no dedicated documentation resources), so I need a way for them to contribute styled content. I really don't want them using Word as it's too easy for them to stray from the supplied styles (we have that problem now for our Word docs). I'm keeping the style pretty simple (Para Styles: ChapterHead, H1-4 and Normal. Char Styles: MenuOption and Note, One OL and one UL. I'm sure I'll add a few more.) So I need to find a way for content authors to contribute and edit. (from what I've read, the PDF review will work well for review cycles. Seems my options are:
Any comments/suggestions on the above plan?
Regards
Mark
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There is an article on my site about using Contribute. I tried it and how well it works depends on your level of patience and the people using it. I gave up after a while! RoboHelp has changed to XHTML since I tried so that may also be an issue.
The free HTML editors may not understand RoboHelp's processing instructions and may well munge them, be very careful. Some are based on the Gecko engine and my experience is that inserts tons of blank lines.
I think I would explore using Linking first. If that does not work for you, let them edit in Word and you then use Word's "compare files" function to find the changes and make them manually. We have also asked editors to mark any changes with three hash symbols so that we can search for the changes quickly. It may sound a bit archaic but it works very well.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
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Any updates on Contribute?
I have multiple users who'd like the ability to make minor corrections (such as adding bold) without going through me. (I'd like that, too!)
I read your site, Peter, and I do understand what you're saying about making changes to the source files. Since RH 10 can be run over a network, would this make using Contribute easier/better? I do understand about making changes to source files as opposed to output....
Any advice or new thoughts?
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It's still a source file even if it is on the network. Whilst the method worked, it did required users who understood how and stuck to the rules. Ain't too many of them around!
I suggest you try the PDF Review process.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
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What if the source files resided in SharePoint? I guess this doesn't alleviate the problem of users not understanding the difference between source and output....but I am curious to know if there are other ideas.
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If you are using SharePoint as your source control application with RH10 and someone checks out a file, makes a change and checks it back in from outside RH10, this could potentially cause issues. It maybe sufficient to just ensure that you ALWAYS gets the latest version of all files before they do anything. You'd have to check this. Potentially they could be issues with you attempting to check out a file in RH10 that has already been checked out in SharePoint.
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Dang. It makes sense, of course, but I really wish it didn't. Any other ideas for allowing minor modifications for users?