Creating renewable content – “Green” authoring

Those who adopt “green” lifestyles try to recycle and reuse as much as possible, preserving resources for future generations.

By the nature of what we produce, Tech Comms can't create content that will last for generations to come, but we can create content that is "green" by adopting reuse strategies. And writing once and reusing many times is not only efficient, it cuts down on errors.

One of the best ways to create reusable content is to save content “chunks.” These chunks can be long or short and they have two added benefits:

• The content only needs to be updated in one place, no matter how many times it is used within a project.
• It ensures consistency, since core information will be the same within and among projects. 

To chunk your content in Doc-To-Help, you would use Variables. I’ll discuss how to create and use variables in Doc-To-Help in a minute, but I did want to note that determining what information to “chunk” into variables is the most time-consuming part of the process and takes a bit of up-front planning and design. Once you have finished planning, the creation process is simple.

To get started, take a look at your content and determine what pieces are used over and over. Some common software documentation examples:

• Product Names
• Field/checkbox/other UI definitions
• Product descriptions
• Terminology definitions

After you’ve sorted out what content you can reuse, create a list of everything that needs to be “greened.” You can then determine what type of variable each will need.

For very short pieces of content, use Text Variables. These are great for things like product names, because if the name changes at the last minute, updating is easy.

For longer chunks that may require formatting, Rich Content Variables are the way to go. They are ideal for definitions that are used repeatedly, and also for lesser used, but volatile information, such as product descriptions.

Once you have determined what you will reuse and how, you can get started chunking. You probably won’t have to do too much writing, because the material already exists. Some rewriting to merge like information may be in order. This recycling exercise will give you and your team the opportunity to update information that has not been reviewed in a while. So you’ll be increasing efficiency, and improving content at the same time.

Now to creation. Before you begin, think about naming conventions. It’s important to give Variables meaningful names, and when creating Rich Content Variables, make sure to divide your Variables into different documents that are also well-titled.

To create a Text Variable:

1. Open the Variables window (On the Project tab of Doc-To-Help, click the Variables toolbar button. )
2. In the Text Variables area, click on the Add New Variable toolbar button. An editable field named "New Variable" will appear in the Name column.
3. Enter a name for the variable, then double-click "Variable text" in the Text column to enter the text (one word or more).
   If you’d like, you can assign one or more conditions to a Variable, so that it is only used in certain outputs.  

To create a Rich Content Variable:

1. Open the Variables window. 
2. In the Rich Content Variable area, click on the Create New Document button. Choose XHTML, HTML, or Word Document from the drop-down list. The Save New Document As dialog box will open. Enter the document Name and click Save to add it to your project.
3. Double-click on the document name in the Variables window to open it. The Variables document will display a table with two columns.
4. Enter variable name in the column on the left (avoid spaces), and the variable content in the column on the right. Apply styles as desired, including conditions.
5. Save the document.

Using Variables is easy … to insert variables in documents:

At the appropriate place in your source document, select the text that will be replaced by a variable and click the Variable button. Choose the proper variable from the list in the Variable dialog box. It is a good best practice to use the variable name as the placeholder text.

(In Microsoft® Word, Microsoft® FrontPage®, and Adobe® Dreamweaver® documents the Variable button is located on the Doc-To-Help tab or toolbar. In the XHTML Editor window,  the Variable button can be found on the Insert tab.)

For more on Variables, see Creating Variables.

For more on Conditions, see Utilizing Conditions.
 
After you have created and are using your Variables, make sure to document your process and your variable naming conventions so that any new content is authored “green.”  

Have fun creating “content that survives” with Variables.