Technical Writer

My first attempt at single sourcing was way back when Microsoft Word introduced master documents and sub-documents.

It was a wonderful theory.

Create a bunch of smaller documents, combine them as required for various audiences, and voila, the perfect single-sourced document.

Anyone who used master documents back in those early days would know what happened.

That part of the Word program was really buggy. Word crashed, documents wouldn’t open, files got corrupted. It was an absolute nightmare.

We abandoned the idea after we lost a course-load of training materials and the associated help manuals. (This was back in the days when we printed everything on paper, even the help.)

I haven’t used Word master documents since. In fact, as I was writing this blog I had to check to see if they were still included in Word 2007.  (The closest equivalent I can find is quick parts and building blocks, but I have never used them.)

Single sourcing is touted as a ‘new’ thing, yet people have tried to use it for a very long time. It’s only now, when the technology and tools catch up with the user’s needs, that we can really use it properly.

The lead time for some of these technologies can take a lot longer than you think.

Another project I worked on back when I was a developer—and I have been a technical writer for a very long time now—was an online shopping system.

By today’s standards, it was unusable. The shopper set up an account with the company, then plugged a special keyboard into their phone line and television, and ordered using product codes from a printed handbook. The line often dropped out half-way through the order and the only thing the poor user could do was dial up and enter it all again.

It took two years to build and I honestly wondered whether on-line shopping would ever take off.

Look at us now, where half the things we buy are on-line, and you don’t have to build shopping systems any more, you purchase shopping cart plug-ins from other vendors for a minimal amount.

Likewise with single sourcing.

Ten-fifteen years on from my first attempt at Word master documents the tools are ready for single sourcing. So what has always been a good idea now becomes doable. And practical. And even a buzzword.

It will be interesting to see where we are in another fifteen years.