In episode 94 of The Content Strategy Experts podcast, Bill Swallow and David Turner of DCL take a look at content migration and discuss all of the players and parts involved.
“It’s not just about moving the content and loading it to the new system. You actually have to transform the content from the unstructured formats.”
–David Turner, DCL
We’ve worked on a few DITA-to-PowerPoint projects. In some cases, the project sounded like a natural fit. In other cases, the fit was less than compelling. Even in projects that seemed to have a natural fit, we encountered bumps in the road with the DITA content, the design of the slide masters, or both.
There are many good reasons to create a DITA-to-PowerPoint conversion. It’s an attractive idea to use the same material for slides and student materials (such as handouts). A DITA-to-PowerPoint conversion also allows you to create slides by reusing content from your existing topics.Â
When we look at structured content, the first priorities are usually efficiency and cost savings. These savings are gained through intelligent content reuse and automated content delivery. The implicit promise of structured authoring is consistency; use structure, get consistent content. But this isn’t always the case, nor should it be.Â
In episode 52 of the Content Strategy Experts podcast, Gretyl Kinsey talks with Mark Gross of DCL about content conversion. They explore some of the use cases they have seen and what partial conversion looks like.
Your publishing workflow has been the same for years, but new technology, different customer requirements, and company growth are making you realize you might need a change. Your print-based processes won’t always be sustainable, and XML is looking like a possibility for the future. There’s just one problem: you have thousands of pages of legacy content that you’ll need to convert, and it’s not exactly XML-friendly.
Transitioning to new publishing processes? Release your greatest hits collection first!
“What a curious feeling!” said Alice; “I must be shutting up like a telescope.”
And so it was indeed: she was now only ten inches high, and her face brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going though the little door into that lovely garden.
Lewis Carroll in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
