Entry into S1000D is cost-prohibitive for many as the tools, skills and effort required to implement S1000D are often too much for smaller organisations to absorb.
At TDW, we are always on the look-out for the tools that enable entry into S1000D at a lower price-point. Tools that will allow individuals and smaller organisations to gain critical skills and knowledge before making the more significant investments needed to ensure S1000D success.
Adjacent markets are always an area where we look to adopt tools that may lean well to an S1000D adoption; however, occasionally a new kid comes on the S1000D block with a fresh, modern and affordable starter-solution targeted at the smaller S1000D requirement.
Docuneering is a new software company focusing on universal S1000D stylesheets for ANY structured editor. Yes, we said any structured editor. Docuneering has developed a set of low-cost and open technology S1000D stylesheets that make printing S1000D modules from your editor of choice a reality, without the need for you to build your bespoke print engine.
At TDW, we took the decision some time ago to migrate away from Adobe FrameMaker for our S1000D needs to a more robust and open architecture with Altova XMLSpy (other tools are available). Docuneering sent us their universal S1000D stylesheet pack, and with a minimal amount of set-up, we were printing S10000D data modules. We took a number of our clients modules and printed them out, no problems at all.
For a fraction of the cost of expensive third-party developed plugins for tools like Adobe FrameMaker, we can achieve formatted output at a much lower price point making S1000D accessible from a software perspective for many.
The team at Docuneering is clear. These stylesheets are to ‘get you started’ with S1000D.
At TDW we can see distinct and practical use-cases for these stylesheets. Authors that may need to have a quick print-preview of their XML document is only a single click away. At the same time, QA processes may now be even more streamlined where authors may print a module and pass it to an editor for review. The more enterprise S1000D software vendors may benefit from integrating this universal stylesheet pack with their existing tools.
To learn more about the stylesheets from Docuneering, please go here. Why not join TDW as a full member and support our work?
