Tips & Tricks, Industry Trends, and New PDF Format

The Works | Issue 16 | 12.08.09

Agile Development & ePublisher

Anne Gentle, top industry commentator, author and blogger at just write click, recently posted an excellent piece comparing collaborative authoring tools.The blog post had been prompted by the move within her company to adopt an Agile development approach.

Anne remarks the change meant “going from 5 people to 47 people in total who could author external or internal documentation within our two week sprints.”

Anne also mentions the various ways that ePublisher can fit within the Agile process. WebWorks uses the Agile process internally to great effect, and it was key to our switch to delivering four product updates a year. At WebWorks RoundUp conference in 2008 we spent a great deal of time talking about the Agile process and how it applied to the whole company.

Over the last six months, we have seen a marked increase in the number of our customers who, like Anne’s company, are adopting the process and are able to use ePublisher as a key component of an Agile workflow.

If you are using ePublisher as a part of your Agile process, please take a moment to tell us what you are doing and most importantly, tell us how we might better serve the Agile workflow?

Wikis on Ars Technica

The use of wikis at WebWorks was heavily featured in a recent article on “Wikis in the Workplace” at the highly rated Ars Technica technology and business website.

The article discussed the various wiki implementations at WebWorks and how each implementation was designed for specific user communities and to meet different business needs. The article also included quotes by CEO, Tony McDow, and Director of Engineering, Ben Allums, on the validity and management of information stored in a wiki.

You can read the full article at: http://arstechnica.com/business/news/ 2009/11/welcome-to-the-wiki-party.ars

New Subscription Plan Savings Available

ePublisher Subscription plans are now available for only $795 for a single license. Additional licenses are available for as low as $295. Call 1-877-893-2967 or e-mail sales@webworks.comfor more information or to request a free trial of ePublisher

Tips & Tricks: Include/Exclude Feature

The Include/Exclude feature allows you to mark a particular document, section, book, or group to be excluded from the build process. This useful feature was added to ePublisher with the 2009.2 release, along with support for FrameMaker 9. Why is this too so useful?

During the project development phase, you can try out different settings or types of documents and switch them in and out immediately to see the effect on the generated content.

Include Exclude

To use the Include/Exclude feature:

In the Document Manager pane simply select the document you want to exclude from the build, then on the main menu go to Edit > Include/Exclude > Exclude.

Any documents you have marked for Exclusion will show up in the Document Manager pane with a dotted Red Line around them.

To re-insert the document into a build process simply select the document and on the main menu go to Edit > Include/Exclude > Include.

Have a favorite ePublisher tip or trick to share with other users? Shoot us an e-mail and your suggestion may be featured in a future issue.

The Benefits of PDF XSL-FO & ePublisher

One of the highlights of the new ePublisher 2009.3 release is the new PDF XSL-FO format that allows you to apply the power of ePublisher to formatting your print ready output. XSL-FO is all about making XML look good in print. ePublisher gives you the ability to apply the detailed and fine typography control that PDF XSL-FO brings to not only your FrameMaker content, but your DITA-XML and MS-Word content too.

XSL-FO is an XML based language that was designed for page-based media and presentation, similar to the way that HTML and CSS was designed for presenting content on a screen based media. The idea of a physical page is central to XSL-FO and the language allows for a lot of control of how information is to be displayed on any given page, even allowing for page to page differences within a single document.

Print layout is divided between ‘layout-driven’ and content-driven’ design practices. ‘Layout-driven’ design applies more to the newspaper and magazine markets where content is often trimmed to fit the required space. ‘Content-driven’ design applies to more general documentation such as books, articles, legal documents and technical manuals. In this model there tends to be an ongoing span of flowing text, with repeating navigation aids, such as page numbers, applied to the page design.

XSL-FO is designed to apply to ‘content-driven’ design, and while it may miss some graphic design capabilities, it is particularly strong in handing typography, tables, lists and other information driven layout devices.

Something in particular that you would like to read about in future issues of The Works. E-mail us your suggestions or call
1-877-893-2967.

Issue 16 | 12.08.09 | WebWorks.com