TOPIC-BASED AUTHORING    What is it?

The traditional approach to producing books and manuals is to plan a content and style, and then sequentially author the information. This is easy for simple documents but where a complex series of books are to be produced, multiple editing of common information for the different volumes and variants is required.

Topic-Based Authoring is the creation of individual topics that are relevant to the potential user of a manual, series of manuals, on-line help or web page.

These individual topics can be created and edited as the procedures and details evolve, and be independently reviewed and modified when required.

When the deliverable e.g. a book or on-line help is required, a structure is created and the topics added. For example some topics may be relevant to a User Guide but others may be required in several additional associated books of a series such as Service Guides, Repair Manuals etc. and also as on-line helps. As each topic is unique, content will be the same wherever it is called for use.

Consistent character styles and document layouts are preset, enabling the topic’s presentation style to be automatically reconfigured to the format of the document in which it is used. Conditional text can be added to a topic to allow it’s use in several products or manual variants.

The end user will not see the individual topics. Only the compiled deliverable.

To summarise:

• Topic-Based Authoring focuses authoring effort on the content not the final deliverable.
• Specific books or guides are not developed individually, instead a body of useful information is authored. Relevant information will finally be selected for publication, independent of the information development process.
• Topics can be individually reviewed, a far less onerous task than reviewing a completed chapter or book.
• Content re-use is maximised and authoring time minimised. The quality of the information is higher as it is more focused.
• The final deliverables can be based on multiple current requirements, and be cheaper and easier to localise.
• Any updates will apply to all the deliverable formats.