Overview
Leveraging XML and DITA standards and a new authoring solution from IBM ECM and Quark, business users can now create content in a structured way -- without the burden and complexity of traditional XML authoring tools. For technical writers, XML has been the answer to repurpose content and manage complex technical documentation. But their specialized rich tools had not made it to the casual business user’s mainstream desktop. Until now. Create once and re-use often is now a reality with an ECM based authoring solution for the masses. It’s made possible by combining Quark ease of use with the benefits of IBM Enterprise Content Management (ECM). The new solution is offered jointly from IBM and Quark.
Based on Quark XML Author for Microsoft Word (PDF, 322KB, link resides outside of ibm.com) business users can create content as simply as if it were a Word document. But behind the easy to use interface, the content is structured and mapped according to the XML and DITA standards and managed in IBM FileNet Content Manager 4.5.
The need for smarter handling
Business users and technical writers in any industry create, manage, and publish volumes of content for their business. Some is new and original. But much is a recreation or variation of existing content with components that could be re-used. In traditional document management, users often created and published a whole new document in its entirety. But as we publish content to multiple formats and channels such as online and hard copy or book format, it becomes obvious that every channel or format has its own rules and best practices on how to present the finished product. And smarter handling of reusable content becomes vital to how you create, manage and publish content.
XML and DITA – the underlying formats
To achieve consistency and avoid redundancy in technical documentation, technical writers earlier adopted XML to easily repurpose their content and manage complex documentation. The next step in the evolution of complex document management was DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) which is based on XML. It is an OASIS standard which enables creation and management of re-usable content for complex documents.
