This presentation highlights the way PTC’s Arbortext Epic Editor has been implemented within the technical publications organization at Juniper Networks, focusing on the successful rollout of the editor and support systems. This document also details some of the proposed enhancements for continued Arbortext integration. Finally, it describes some of the challenges in deploying the Arbortext suite of tools and how those challenges were met.

The Arbortext project at Juniper Networks is a major technical publications initiative designed primarily to convert existing documentation and author new documentation in a single-sourcing environment. By authoring in an XML environment, we are able to make use of vast areas of overlapping information. Through information reuse, we can effectively increase the efficiency of our entire technical publications staff, an ever-increasing goal as demands for documentation increase while staffing and resource challenges persist.

The single-sourcing project had several initial requirements that had to met. These ranged from the successful conversion of Framemaker files to Epic files to the integration of Interwoven to provide a viable source control environment.

• Initial Abstract [PDF 73 KB]
• Presentation Slides [PDF 14 MB]

Note: Arbortext was purchased by PTC in 2005

At Single-Sourcing Solutions, Inc., our focus is on customers who, for one reason or another, prefer to pursue an in-house or limited-resource-based implementation rather than a fast, large-team implementation. We focus on acting as mentors or as part-time resources to assist implementers while they’re getting started.

We help in-house teams learn to do it themselves by providing an on-call resource that can assist as necessary.

• We teach people how to do document analysis, so they can do it themselves, one book at a time, as their staff has time to devote to the project.
• We can act as a jump-start team, doing initial stylesheet development or tool implementation with the intention to hand it over to the in-company team as soon as they feel ready to take it over.

Our approach is to provide honest, direct advice — and just the right amount of assistance — to take new Arbortext customers from purchase to production.