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Author-it Case Study

Author-it Case Study. A successful software company with a suite of products that needs accompanying user documentation. Computing Directions Australia. Over 20 years in business Flagship product is Synergetic Management System for Schools

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Author-it Case Study

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  1. Author-it Case Study A successful software company with a suite of products that needs accompanying user documentation

  2. Computing Directions Australia • Over 20 years in business • Flagship product is Synergetic Management System for Schools • Software covers all functions required by a private educational institution • 100+ customers, thousands of users • New software includes: • Synweb • Web portal

  3. Evolving suite of software products Synergetic client-server Synergetic web application (Synweb)

  4. Evolving suite of software products Synergetic web portal

  5. Author-it • We use Author-it to maintain the documentation • Author-it is a NZ software product • Authoring and content management • Single-source publishing to multiple outputs

  6. How Author-it is used • Develop and maintain content • Publish content to different formats: • PDF • Online help • Context-sensitive help • Use the features of Author-it to improve the usability of the documentation • Re-use existing content to create documentation for new products

  7. Develop and maintain content • Author-it Enterprise Edition • SQL Server database for the library • 16,300+ objects • Smaller projects can use a JET database

  8. Styles 90 File objects 5062 Books 65 Topics 2700 Total 16,371 Author-it – a database of objects

  9. Books and topics – organised content! • A book collects together relevant topics • The structure is used to generate the table of contents

  10. Styles – enforced rigour! • Every paragraph must have a style! • Character styles are useful too! • Standard styles are available • New styles can be defined

  11. File objects – graphics with attitude! • Every aspect of a file object can be controlled • Templates are used to inherit generic properties • File objects can be embedded or linked

  12. Templates – inheritance brings speed • Templates are special objects • Can save a lot of time • You can easily apply a different template to change the behaviour of one or more objects

  13. How Author-it is used • Develop and maintain content • Publish content to different formats: • PDF • Online help • Context-sensitive help • Use the features of Author-it to improve the usability of the documentation • Re-use existing content to create documentation for new products

  14. Publish output to a range of outputs • Output to: • MS Word • HTML Help • HTML Pages • Other outputs • Leverage the investment in existing content

  15. Synergetic – context-sensitive help

  16. Synweb – online help

  17. Microsoft Word output – converted to PDFs

  18. How Author-it is used • Develop and maintain content • Publish content to different formats: • PDF • Online help • Context-sensitive help • Use the features of Author-it to improve the usability of the documentation • Re-use existing content to create documentation for new products

  19. Index entries 5609 Styles 90 Indexes 34 File objects 5062 Books 65 Topics 2700 Hypertext links 2751 Total 16,371 Author-it – more objects… Styles 90 File objects 5062 Media objects 24 Overall books 2 Total 16,371

  20. Hypertext link – online example

  21. Linking to a URL – online example

  22. Drop down hotspot – online output • Expanding hotspots are useful for reducing clutter online • Expanding topic has all the features of a regular topic • User sees what they want to see

  23. Useful navigation features • Table of contents • Automatically generated from the book structure • Full text search facility • Automatic in all online output • Index • Created from index entries you enter • Glossary - optional • Table of figures - optional

  24. Full text search and index

  25. Table of contents

  26. Media objects • Define the formatting of published output • For example: • paper size and margins for printed output • Colours and layout in HTML pages output

  27. How Author-it is used • Develop and maintain content • Publish content to different formats: • PDF • Online help • Context-sensitive help • Use the features of Author-it to improve the usability of the documentation • Re-use existing content to create documentation for new products

  28. Index entries 5609 Styles 90 Indexes 34 File objects 5062 Books 65 Topics 2700 Topics 2466 Embedded topics 234 Hypertext links 2751 Total 16,371 Author-it – more objects… Styles 90 File objects 5062 Media objects 24 Overall books 2 Total 16,371

  29. Embedded topics – Re-using content! • Synergetic and Synweb topics use common, embedded topics (grey) • The embedded topic can be easily edited • A change in the embedded topic is reflected in the other topics

  30. Re-using content – online examples

  31. Summary • Initially Author-it enabled us to: • comprehensively document the Synergetic client-server system • publish to Word, PDF, HTML Help and context-sensitive help • easily update screen captures as features changed. • As CDA have grown Author-it has enabled us to: • re-use content to create documentation for new products (web-based product, stand-alone product) • output to HTML pages (latest version on CDA website).

  32. Thank you • Contact us to discuss your unique requirements without cost or obligation: • Phone (03) 8544 1400 • Email info@knowledgedoc.com.au

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