Beyond DTP Saving Time and Money with SDL Knowledge Center Beyond DTP Saving Time and Money with SDL Knowledge sdl.com Center
Introduction You can save significant time and reduce costs by migrating from traditional authoring and Desktop Publishing (DTP) to structured authoring. Although this ebook focuses on the costly DTP aspects of traditional publishing, it also touches on structured authoring's cost-saving opportunities for: Content formatting Translations Publishing workflow The ROI of structured content Additional benefits Caution: This book assumes that you currently use non-structured DTP-based publishing with software such as Microsoft Word or Adobe FrameMaker, but may be considering migrating to DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) an XML standard that facilitates structured authoring. This ebook is not a tutorial on structured authoring or component content management. It focuses on the benefits of eliminating costly DTP from your publishing workflow by adopting structured authoring with component content management.
The Evolution of DTP Desktop publishing has been around since the early 1980s and has improved considerably. Early DTP software focused on page layout with external word processors used for content. Now, most traditional authoring tools also provide some page layout control. The focus of these tools was print delivery since website, mobile devices and other online tools were not yet common. Now plug-ins and software enhancements make PDF and other delivery methods possible.
Content Formatting Formatting Using Traditional Publishing Software With its print focus, formatting in DTP was combined with content, allowing authors to click and apply formatting using ribbon options or short-cut keys. Authors are used to formatting on the go while creating content, applying indents, different bullet types, bold, italic and even color at will. While traditional authoring software often allows for formatting using predefined style catalogs, the ease with which they can override or ignore these options means that formatting is often random or inconsistent. For example, when creating a heading or subheading, an author with moderate publishing skills may select a predefined style from the style catalog. Those with less advanced skills, however, often select text and manually change the formatting. While this might create text that looks exactly like a heading, for example, the format is still Body or Normal with extensive character overrides. The real issues with this approach are that it becomes impossible to apply global style updates and formatting is often inconsistent, requiring a daunting amount of time to edit and review. UNSHARED LOCKED INCOMPATIBLE INCONSISTENT Flat & Static Content Locked in Silos Not Available on all devices Confusing to Customers
Formatting Using Component-based Software The very different model used by structured authoring with component content management virtually eliminates time and costs associated with DTP processes. DITA and structure completely separates content from formatting. External stylesheets and rules completely automate formatting. For example, a stylesheet may define a list style that specifies changes in its indents or bullet (dash, bullet or square) based on context and location. When a bullet item is moved within a hierarchical list, formatting is automatically updated. For instance, a bullet may change to a dash and the indent may be increased because the list item is no longer top level. When using structured authoring, DITA applies generic tags. For example, <title> is generically used for any number of headings; the author does not have to decide between Heading1, Heading2, etc. Traditional publishing templates for technical documentation often contained over 125 paragraph styles. The equivalent style sheets for structured publishing often have 25-40 frequently used elements for the author to master. Pre-defined rules ensure that the resulting content is consistently formatted, and changes to formatting are universally applied using external stylesheets. These rules also prevent certain types of content errors. For example, you can specify that a list or table cannot appear directly beneath a chapter heading, or that a note of caution is always preceded by a suitable icon. AUTHOR CONTENT CHANNEL??
Translations Managing Translations with Traditional Publishing With traditional publishing workflow, language translation often requires additional staff for DTP. Since publishing and formatting are not automatic, new and updated documents often need manual touch ups. This problem is compounded even further if you need to provide content in multiple languages. Language expansion and other issues often necessitate formatting adjustments. You may require additional DTP staff to correct formatting of translated content. Managing Translations with Structured Content With component-based authoring, content metadata identifies the target language for translation. This language designation can automatically invoke different stylesheet information, automatically reformatting the content to adjust for typical text expansion. This one feature alone can eliminate hundreds of billable post-translation DTP hours and is one of the key, money-saving advantages to componentbased authoring over traditional DTP-based workflow. For example, if you add 11 languages, a language service provider may need to add 5 to 7 DTP staff to perform post-linguistic corrective formatting. For many organizations, this inability to scale to meet language requirements is both difficult and costly.
Publishing Workflow Managing Workflow with Traditional Publishing Traditional publishing uses files that usually reflect a page-based model such as a Microsoft Word document or Adobe FrameMaker book file. Essentially, the smallest unit an author can have for assembling a publication is a single-page document. This leads to several challenges: Content reuse is limited. It is extremely difficult to reuse or link content at a sentence or paragraph level across several publications. Content reuse is not dynamic. Content reuse is limited to static copy-and-paste. Content is not synchronized. Pasted text is not updated when source text is updated. Translation cannot occur until the entire document or chapter is complete and approved. There is no way to start translation on part of a document when all of the content is not complete.
Project Start English Release Global Release Shelf Life Traditional Authoring Research & Development Author Review Publish Translation Market life Component Content Management Research & Development Global Revenue & Market Capture Life Key Author Review Publish Translation Managing Workflow with Structured Content A structured content approach allows for easy reuse of content with dynamic, synchronized updates in any publication in which the content has been used. Structured, component-based authoring allows authors and editors to approve chunks of content before an entire project is complete. This allows for sections of the project to go into translation while other sections or subsections are still being authored. Note the illustration on this page which contrasts traditional workflow with structured authoring. Because component content management leads to earlier project release it provides a wider window for revenue, which is further magnified with multiple global releases. In the workflow illustrated on this page, with component content management, the three publishing phases are complete even before publishing and translation can begin within a traditional authoring scenario.
Hidden Costs of DTP in Traditional Workflow Technical content, for the most part, still uses traditional DTP because the software is relatively inexpensive and because of entrenched habits. That said, it is easy to justify the cost of a move from traditional publishing to component based authoring. SDL has a number of comprehensive return-on-investment (ROI) calculators. Below is a very constrained calculator which allows you to estimate cost savings from just one benefit, the elimination of DTP in your publishing cycle. In the following example, a project of 1,250 pages has an overall cost of approximately $100 per page. Page cost is influenced by complexity (e.g. high table count) and the amount of complex DTP formatting. DTP is often 20% of the cost and effort in an overall project when traditional publishing is used. In this case, 6 total languages multiply the DTP portion of the project to $150,000. 1,250 Number of pages $100 Cost per page $125,000 Total cost of project $25,000 Average DTP cost 20% source language 6 Number of languages, including source $150,000 DTP cost across all languages, which can be eliminated with SDL Knowledge Center When the project is migrated to component-based structured authoring with SDL Knowledge Center, this cost can be eliminated.
Additional Benefits of Component-based Publishing While this ebook focused primarily on DTP savings, the move to structured content and component-based publishing has considerable additional benefits: Widespread content reuse: > > Identical topics, cautions and warnings need only be proofed/reviewed once. > > Translation costs reduced 30-40% through reused content that is translated once. > > Eliminate errors from manually pasted content and enable dynamic updates. Easy access to critical data: > > Team members easily locate the latest approved version of reusable content. > > Easier monitoring of progress on review, approval and translation. Consistent content with a single voice : > > Reuse of content components ensures that text is more consistent across publications by multiple authors. > > Better customer experience through consistency. > > More clarity in thought and intent during authoring. > > Authors are no longer distracted by page layout and format issues. > > Ideas are captured more swiftly during authoring because authors are not distracted by manual formatting. Manage relationships between components: > > Component content management not only tracks versions of text components but it also manages the relationship reused content has across several projects. Reduce time to market: > > Dramatically reduce publishing efforts through automated formatting and publishing.
In Conclusion The significant time and cost savings from eliminating DTP from your publishing workflow are clear. In addition, by releasing your products earlier with accurate, engaging content in all global markets you will have a positive impact on your bottom line. And you can t put a price on releasing a product before your competitors. SDL has a powerful solution that meets the challenges described in this ebook: SDL Knowledge Center.
DTP saving calculator Additional resources Find out just how much money you can save by migrating from old-fashioned DTP-based publishing to component-based publishing with SDL Knowledge Center: Knowledge Center Product Brief Knowledge Center Datasheet Customer Case Study
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