|
|
|
Case study:MS Word as an efficient, flexible and reliable publishing solution
Our brief from the Tax Office was to design and produce a comprehensive and readily updateable interpretive reference to a new area of law, income tax consolidation, that would also explain its practical and operational impacts. Complicating this was the requirement that the material be progressively released (and updated), initially as a draft, to accompany four tranches of legislation as they were introduced, amended and enacted. Our solution involved:
(The manual can be downloaded as a complete PDF or in individual sections. The hyperlinking works only in the complete PDF version, which is a 5.7 Mb download.) The latest version, over 1000 pages in length, is based on more than 200
Microsoft Word files. These files, most of which were originally created from a
template by a large team of subject matter experts located across the country,
remain the live publishing files right up to the final stage of publishing. At
this point they are assembled into a single master document, the Updated sections of the manual are published to the web as they become available and complete revisions are issued biannually. We have so far published seven major versions of the manual - two drafts, a fully developed version 1.0, and four revisions. Publishing in MS Word offers considerable flexibility and efficiency associated with its status as the standard corporate word processor, but brings with it some complexities and risks. A common problem with large Word documents - especially where they contain images, such as screen grabs - is document corruption. This tends to be a result of the sheer complexity of the document file. The risk of document corruption can be greatly reduced by authoring a large, complex document as a series of smaller, individual documents. If corruption still occurs, this approach quarantines the problem to the individual file rather than bringing down the entire document. It also makes updating more efficient as individual files can be simultaneously returned to different author areas. Using purpose-built tools, the individual documents can be automatically compiled into a single large document for publishing, either in Word format or PDF. Our tools also overcome several other problems inherent with producing multi-file documents in Word, such as its notoriously corruptible master document feature, and the difficulty of creating cross-document cross-references. Another area where Word is vulnerable is in maintaining the integrity of document styles. This is partly a consequence of the application 'helping' users by inventing new styles based on their manual formatting (a problem that has been exacerbated since Word 2002). Our strategy has been to provide technical authors with a user-friendly template
incorporating a set of styles that adequately covers their likely formatting
requirements, together with clear instructions. Documents created from other
templates are 'purged' before being formatted from the correct template. Word's document automation features can be greatly enhanced with purpose-built macros. For example, Word can automatically hyperlink tables of contents and intradocument cross-references but cannot natively generate a hyperlinked index. Evans-Smith & Dando and Run Time Solutions have developed a series of macros to generate a hyperlinked index in Word. These macros work on either a single large document or across multiple documents. The hyperlinked table of contents, cross-references and index are maintained if the document is converted to PDF format. The template for the Consolidation reference manual files also includes a data entry form that prompts for key document information when a new file is created. This data, which is stored in custom property fields, is used to populate the header and footer and set the document's colour coding. Tools such as the data entry form ensure key information is entered in a consistent way and support file management functions, such as updating version dates in the footer. With a large number of geographically dispersed authors and reviewers, version control is critical. Version control for the Consolidation reference manual is based on the principles of:
Drafts of the manual's content and format were tested with a small group of potential users during design. Representatives of user groups were also consulted. After 12 months of use, the Consolidation reference manual has been recognised both externally and internally within the Tax Office as a ground-breaking communication solution to an inherently complex and high-risk measure. Tax sector representatives and senior Tax Office managers have described the draft manual as the best communication product to have come out of the organisation. Evans-Smith & Dando's scope of work covered:
|
|
Email david@evans-smith-dando.com.au with
questions or comments about this web site. |
The Consolidation reference manual is available in both print and electronic
form (PDF on CD and web), in two layers of detail for different user levels. It
is fully indexed, and the index, tables of contents, and internal
cross-references are hyperlinked in the electronic version. 
hyperlinked
index is built, and the master document is converted to PDF for printing and CD
reproduction. Assembly and hyperlinking is a fully automated procedure that is
handled by a series of purpose-built macros.