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From the lens What is Single Sourcing (Single-Source Publishing)?.

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  • Barry Schaeffer Oct 19, 2010 @ 1:16 pm | delete
    I would suggest that there are two primary means of producing multiple outputs from a single source:

    1. Componentization (often known as Component Content Management or CCM) - breaking the content down into chunks small enough to produce the desired outputs through differing collection.
    2. Variant management (Arbortext calls it "Profiling") through markup in the single source and processing it upon output into the desired variants.

    While both work, and each has its strengths and weaknesses, the popular discussion of single source publication is based on the implicit assumption that CCM will be the primary tool. This is unfortunate because tagged variant management is a powerful and flexible tool that works best for many applications.

    For example, Ford Motor Company, since 1997, uses tagged variant management to produce up to 12 years of owners manuals from a single SGML/XML document for each model. This allows the document to make effective use of the high level of common content without the tortuous attempt to fragment it for CCM collection.
    My own experience has been that a combination of both techniques can be highly effective: large component CCM with each component profiled to make it usable in multiple outputs without further fragmentation.
    The first use of this technique was begun at Pratt & Whitney Canada in 1996, with its adoption by Boeing and Sikorsky shortly after. It has proven its value and should become part of the single source world, especially with the growing ability to create and process richly tagged XML source content.
  • caltonia Oct 19, 2010 @ 8:02 pm | delete
    Barry, great post. Glad to have this as part of the lens!

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caltonia

A software engineer who works with technical writing departments to implement single-sourcing environments for the purposes of maximum reuse... more »

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