FrameMaker Markers - Standard Markers Used in Technical Writing?

[Luxxie]

Hi,

This may be more of a technical writing question, but I will be writing a number of different types of documents, including business processes, codes of practice, manuals, standards and work instructions.

I need to decide which metadata to capture, but I am new to metadata, and not entirely sure what I should be capturing.

Can anyone give me advice on typical markers that are used in technical documentation (other than the default ones)?

Thanks

[FieryPantone]

The purpose of metadata, I'd say, is to make it easier to find information, documents and relationships: so it's the content of the document that determines what metadata might be useful. This assertion, though, is probably no help to you at all :-} The File info fields in FM aren't exactly rich, either.

Take a look at these references and see if they do better:

• DITA metadata, from the DITA standard
• the Dublin Core article in wikipedia
• Marc, from the Library of Congress

Mind you, another side of the question is "How are you going to access this metadata?" The only environment I've come across where I can actually use metadata to retrieve files is my preferred DITA environment – XML Mind – which lets me search the contents of a ditamap for attribute/value pairs. (polite disclaimer: I'm not saying FM doesn't, just admitting I haven't got that far yet) Not sure whether FM marker information that doesn't show up on the output page (a .pdf, for instance) will be accessible outside FM.

Also, we're currently moving towards SharePoint for document management. Lots of metadata options, but only inside SharePoint – not in the document itself. (and the absence of a command-line query mechanism still bugs me)