Single-sourcing with RH

[Jenn_MM]

Hi All--
I'm thinking about maintaining all the topics for our documentation set in one main project since you cannot reference or 'point to' topics in other projects and generate printed documentation, but I'm concerned about the layer of complexity this is going to introduce to managing the project. Here are some of the tags, variables, etc. that I am considering:

*Maintaining separate TOCs for each deliverable (user guide, online Help)
*Using variables for AppNames, Version Number
*Creating a layout for generating each deliverable
*Creating build tags at the deliverable and print/online level.

Is this a credible strategy? Has anyone else done anything similar? Should I simplify it somewhat?
Thanks,
Jen

[RoboColum_n_]

Hi Jen.

Single sourcing to me means being able to generate more than one output (e.g. online help and a manual) from the same set of source files and with no or minimal tweaking. It is not putting all the source files for user guides and online help in the same project. - unless your user guide is just a printed copy of the help?

That said, I could see your approach working but would be concerned at the complexity for the reasons stated above.

[Jenn_MM]

The Help, User Guide, and Admin Guide do share a number of topics and, in some cases, chapters. I'm reorganizing a preexisting documentation set so it's easier to update (unfortunately reworking it is not an option). I think at some point in the past all the doc was output from RH for Word (It's in RoboHTML now), but I don't think any conditional tagging was applied.

[RoboColum_n_]

It sounds like you are between a rock and a hard place so there is no easy solution. Your approach would seem to be a workable solution.