My day job is to create text blocks with illustrations (topics) for technical user manuals. I assemble them to manuals which are published in the following formats:

  • PDF documents for printing,
  • HTML documents for the web, and
  • CHM (Windows help files) for display within our software products (F1 key).

Some of those topics are “reused”, e.g. a topic like “Savety instructions” exists once and is used in all user manuals alike. This is called Single Sourcing.

Of course, all user manuals are translated into a lot of languages.

All the data is stored in a content management system which has a publishing engine capable of generating the aformentioned output formats.

Several people are involved in the process:

  • technical writers,
  • revisors,
  • translators,
  • proof-readers, and
  • IT specialists to keep the system running.

Here is the process:

RP_process

My wife wrote a great children’s fantasy book with several illustrations in it. Then she wrote another children’s book, more or less the same style. After a short time she passed me another story and asked me:

“Could you please publish this one, too?”

I answered: “You want that one also translated into German, English and Spanish, and you want it published as both a printed book and in several e-book formats, right?”

This was the exact moment when I said: Wait a moment! It’s not a one-shot deal anymore. Let’s look at the processes:

RP_process

Hmm? They look the same, don’t they? Yes, I copied the flow chart! Why that? What’s happening behind the scenes?

Writing/Editing

User manuals:

I am doing both the writing and the illustrations. However, we are two writers/illustrators in the department. In addition to that, we sometimes work with external technical writers.

Children’s books:

My wife writes the books. Although we are looking for further children’s book writers, my wife is still the only one. The illustrations are done by freelance illustrators.

So generally speaking, the writing and editing processes are alike.

Revision

The revision process is almost identical: while the user manuals are being revised by my colleagues from the development department, the children’s books are revised by an external freelance revisor.

Translation

User manuals:

We work with freelance translators. I held a presentation about how we do that at MemoQFest in Hungary in April 2009. Here are the slides.

A Truly Global Sme

View more presentations from calutateo.

Usually enterprises contract a translation service provider. Anyway, the process is similar.

Children’s books:

I am used to finding and hiring the best translators out there. That’s my job. So I just hired a literary translator for each language pair, it this case:

  • Portuguese to Spanish (freelance translator),
  • Portuguese to English (freelance translator), and
  • Portuguese to German (I do the translations myself).

Proof-reading

There is not a big difference between revision and proof-reading. While the revisor checks if the content is okay (grammar, syntax, logic, content, etc.), the proof-reader checks if the translation and the target language is okay. A proof-reader shouldn’t change the content. Otherwise the original document would have to be re-edited.

Multiple formats

Now that’s the catch!

From a technical point of view the output formats are mere technical requirements. That is, your content management system and the attached publishing engine should be able to provide the following formats for both print and electronic distribution

  • User manuals: PDF, HTML and CHM
  • Children’s books: PDF, ePUB, LIT, MOBI, LRF, PDB

There is a plethora of content management systems available out there on the market which can handle PDF, HTML and CHM. The e-book market, however, is pretty young. So finding the appropriate system is a big challenge.

I would like to mention three of them with completely different approaches:

If you find other systems/services please feel free to comment.

Conclusion

Question: What’s the difference between user manuals and children’s books?

Answer: Concerning the processes involved there is almost no difference.

For two reasons it’s easier to publish children’s books:

  1. There is no such thing as “reuse”. There won’t be identical “topics” which could be reused in different children’s book. For user manuals it’s a “must have” feature.
  2. Children’s books don’t suffer changes. User manuals for most products are changed every five months or so because the device or the software gets new functions or features which have to be described. A children’s book on the other hand is published once and that’s it.