Technical documentation

Nowadays, various versions of products are produced, whereby the versions are created by combining prefabricated modules. In the same way, documentation is created in FirstSpirit™. Text blocks or whole chapters are written in the Content Store, which are then compiled in the Site Store to form documents. If a sub-function changes, only the corresponding text block has to be adjusted, and only once.

Many clients make use of the fact that the filing structure for the text blocks in the content store is independent of the subsequent structure of the documents. In this way, a structure can be selected in the Content Store, which corresponds to the organisational structure of the company, while the document structure is function or topic-based.

By managing the document structure in a tree structure, documents can be quickly and easily reorganised by means of Drag & Drop. Chapter numbering is automatically followed.

With FirstSpirit™, any number of editors can simultaneously work on a document - irrespective of location and time zone. Editors can quickly communicate with each other, directly in the software, using object-specific forums and a built-in chat function. The flexible workflow engine of FirstSpirit™ ensures that everything nevertheless takes place in "well-ordered" paths. Thanks to the perfected rights management of FirstSpirit™, access can also be defined right down to section and picture level.

FirstSpirit™ users can fully concentrate on creating the content. The system automatically monitors compliance with all CI rules. In print documents, even "widows" and "orphans" (incorrectly made up sections) are automatically dealt with.

In addition, cover sheets, lists/tables of contents, indexes and glossaries are generated from the entered content and defined document structure, without any involvement of the editors and are therefore always up-to-date.

Thanks to full Unicode support, documents can be entered in FirstSpirit™ in any and any number of languages, whereby the texts are kept synchronous in the standard by means of the document structure. Optionally, language-specific variations of sections, chapters or whole documents are also possible. FirstSpirit™ can also handle language-specific pictures and graphics.

Translations can be carried out directly in FirstSpirit™, whereby language variations can be positioned next to each other on the screen and changes to the document immediately visualised. In this way, new text passages to be translated are quickly identified.

An XML-based export/import interface for (sub-)documents also enables external translation of the content with the help of professional translation tools.

FirstSpirit™ produces high-quality, printable PDF/X-3 documents. The following formats are currently supported: Acrobat Forms, PDF 1.3 to PDF 1.7, PDF/X and PDF/A.

During their work, editors can use the preview function to check the quality of the whole document or the currently edited section only.

Web-optimized PDFs are also easy to produce with FirstSpirit™, as if required, the system automatically scales down high-resolution media and therefore reduces the file size.

Once content has been entered, it can be output not only in PDF format, but also in any character-based format, for example, as websites, web pages, output channels for mobile terminals or XML. The template technology of FirstSpirit™ ensures that the output always precisely satisfies the corporate identity specifications.

Product data from existing databases and other systems is frequently incorporated in documentation. With FirstSpirit™ you can do this literally. Such data can be integrated without having to re-enter it and without redundancies. Not only can lists be generated, but individual pages too, which display database content and can be connected to each other using page group navigations. It is even possible to embed individual data in the content maintained in FirstSpirit™.