Do You Reuse Content?
Technical writers often have to use the same pieces of content in different documents or even projects. One might say that is great because you know that some part of your work has already been done, and you need only to use the same piece of content once again. But is that really so easy as it seems? The answer is NO. The main problem that you will face is that when you need to update this piece of content, you will have to check all the documents that contain it, and you’ll have to update it everywhere. If you need to copy and paste often, you can make a mistake — that can happen to anyone; it is our human nature, unfortunately. That is why what you need is a help authoring tool with content reuse features. Almost all help authoring tools offer these features, though they may be called differently.
Here are the advantages of content reuse:
- You will easily update the same piece of content no matter how many documents contain it. You change just the source, and all the documents update automatically. You do not have to work on each document.
- You reduce the number of mistakes while correcting the docs manually and while copypasting.
- You speed up the workflow. That is vital.
- Content reuse adds to consistency of your workflow in general.
The whole idea of content reuse may seem to be difficult at first, especially if you have never implemented it. There should be a clear strategy. Pay attention to the following things:
- Reusable content should be easy to find.
- Reusable content should be standard. It can be used in all kinds of documents.
- Reusable content should be consistent and contain useful links.
In other words, creating reusable content requires careful planning and following specific recommendations.
You can reuse topics, and you can reuse smaller pieces of information — snippets (terminology may differ in different help authoring tools). The idea of topic reuse is like that: content is written in different topics but not in one file; you can add one and the same topic to different manuals. As for snippets, I’ve already mentioned above, they are smaller pieces of information like explanations or steps stored in a separate location. You can add them to any document as well.
In case you need to use content that is similar but not identical, you can use variables. They allow setting values for text, for example, product names; and you can easily create user guides using different names of a product. Some help authoring tools offer conditional text features. It means that you can mark which parts of a text to include and exclude in your document.
I use ClickHelp, and its content reuse features help me get more control over my projects and topics. Apart from the above-mentioned things, it has quick parts. It is another mechanism that helps authors create standard components and use them in different documents and projects. The biggest advantage of it is that the same element can look differently in different projects depending on the style. Though the initial quick part element doesn’t have specific colors or formatting.
So, every tech writer can speed up the routine processes with the help of technical writing tools. You need just to find what help authoring tool offers the best features for you. I hope this post gives you an idea of how to do that.
