Images, annotations, and conversions — oh my
So, turns out that converting to DITA from unstructured FrameMaker is not all rainbows and unicorns…
…especially when you’ve added all of your image annotations in the authoring software instead of in the source image files themselves…
…and then you need to convert all of said images — and their annotations — from an unstructured to a structured authoring environment…
…in a short amount of time…
…with limited resources time to devote to the task among a small group of content developers.
Oof.
There were good reasons for using the authoring software to add image annotations:
- For us, it has been faster and easier to update annotations from the authoring software when changes are needed.
- Our annotations have a consistent format across documents.
- The image file sizes are smaller.
- We have a fewer number of image files to manage — we can reuse images more often with the annotations being separate from the image files.
But at the moment those reasons feel . . . rather less compelling.
Welp, back to it…
Why DITA+?
I like short, pithy URLs, and this was the pithiest I could find that wasn’t already registered (at least until I got tired of looking).
Also, the plus has a vague educational suggestion to it. As in, I hope our team gets an A+ as we convert from unstructured FrameMaker to a DITA CCMS.
That’s a pretty easy transition, right? I’m counting on it being smooth sailing, all rainbows and unicorns, etc.
Here we go…