HTML Transit

From TechWriter Wiki

An off-the-shelf package for converting documents to HTML.

Apparently fully configurable - can insert code, apply styles, etc, based on styles in the original document.

This from the Website:

Transit Solutions provide the fastest and most cost effective way to create and maintain powerful Web sites. Using Transit Solutions:

• You save time and money by automating the maintenance of Web site content
• Users contribute content to the Web site using standard business tools---such as word processors and other programs---without needing to understand HTML
• The Web site content is updated automatically when the content in the source documents changes
• The published site is less prone to error resulting from manual intervention
• New sites can be created instantly by using information that already exists inside the enterprise
• Contributors save to the network---no client software or training is necessary
• Resulting Web sites work on any Web server
• Transit Solutions provide tremendous control over the resulting Web site
• Layout, navigation, behavior, colors, scripts---the look and feel of your Web site---can be set and replicated. Changes can be centrally controlled
• Reference documents, such as Tables of Contents, Keyword Indexes, List of Figures, Lists of Tables, and Abstracts, are automatically created, providing sophisticated navigation capabilities
• Information can be personalized
• Site visitors are able more easily to get the information they need
• High-end, professional-looking Web sites can be automatically delivered
• Integrating your Web site with other Web site tools, such as search engines, Active Server Pages, and Java, is a snap

Transit Solutions deliver fast prototyping, proofing, deployment and automated revision of corporate portals, business to business, or business to consumer Web sites. Because the content maintenance is automated, Webmasters can focus on making the site more useful for visitors.

HTML Transit
Using HTML Transit, anyone can create powerful Web sites instantly. You can specify standard business documents as the source for your Web site. HTML Transit reads the content from source documents, recreates the content in HTML or XML, and publishes the results to your Web site. When the content in the source documents changes, you can update the Web site with HTML Transit by merely pushing a button. The result is a site that is easy to maintain, contains up-to-date information, displays consistent behavior and appearance, and has reliable links.

Transit Central
Transit Central publishes Web sites automatically. Using Transit Central, you can specify directories in your organization where content can be collected so that anyone can publish by dragging and dropping documents into those directories. HTML Transit users administer the process by creating the project files Transit Central uses, and scheduling Transit Central updates to happen hourly, daily, weekly---as often as needed. Transit Central ensures that Web site content is kept up-to-date by checking source documents for content changes, and updating those sections on the Web site.

Improve the visitor's experience
By using Transit Solutions to keep your Web site up-to-date, you can focus on making your Web site more useful for visitors. Each visit to your site can be a personalized experience because content can be marked for use by different audiences. As each user logs in, information can be revealed to that user based upon their login. Searches can be filtered according to user access. And because users are only presented with relevant information, they can remain focused on the task at hand. Because Transit's output can be integrated with other Web technologies, such as ASP, Java, XML, search tools, and databases, Transit Solutions become a publishing platform as the basis for your Web site. Webmasters no longer have to focus on how to keep the site up-to-date. Instead, they can focus on how to make the site more useful by making it tie-in to other business processes, such as order entry, inventory tracking, and maintenance procedures.

Optimize content for on-line viewing
HTML Transit lets you pair your documents with Transit Templates™, which re-purpose your content for on-line use. Customizable Transit Templates provide:

• Complete control over font sizes and colors, paragraph formatting, scripts, navigational constructs and buttons, and the inclusion or suppression of content
• The opportunity to transform and optimize content for on-screen delivery in standard browsers
• The ability to chop information into screen size chunks
• A consistent look and feel of related Web pages
• Multiple Web presentations of the same original document for different audiences, or to provide unique layouts for viewing and for printing
• A fast and easy way to maintain navigational links, tables of contents, and indexes when source documents are updated
• An easy and painless way to update Web pages, so they remain in sync with source documents

Intelligent documents through scripts, security, and conditional navigation Transit Templates also allow you to add intelligence to your Web pages. Scripts, security settings, and controlled navigation procedures can be added at the element or page level. And most important, these additions are updated every time your content changes---no need to go back and tediously add scripts and manage links whenever the Web site content changes. The Webmaster merely saves the information that they want in the site to the project, and the site is updated whenever content changes.

No special authoring tools
One of the key benefits of Transit Solutions is the fact that authors continue to create content in familiar tools. Documents created in standard business formats such as Microsoft Office and Lotus SmartSuite are the source material for the site. Although authored for print use, Transit is able to optimize these documents for on-line use. This is known as Single Source Publishing.

Single Source Publishing
With Single Source Publishing, one original document is the governing authority but it can have many "looks" and purposes in an organization. Transit Templates can be used to re-purpose the content for each audience and use. Single Source Publishing is a very different approach from models where authors creating a document are responsible for anticipating a Web look, storing multiple sources and converting to or "saving as HTML".

Solving the problem of "Save As HTML"
Manual conversion of content to HTML is not only tedious but creates a fundamental content management problem. The hand-tweaked HTML version, or a Save As HTML version, tends to become a separate source document rather than simply a rendition of the original. Each change in content made by the author needs to be re-implemented in the HTML version, and for minor changes the effort may not seem worth it. It's easy for Web content to quickly become out-of-date and out-of-sync with the authored source. Furthermore, when documents are added using this process, navigation links to next and previous pages and from reference documents such as Tables of Contents must be manually updated. Transit Solutions eliminate the costs associated with manual updates.

The philosophy behind HTML Transit and Transit Central is that content should be maintained in a single source, i.e. in the authored format, regardless of the form of output. Then changes in the content need only be made once---by the author---allowing more timely updates of the Web-published version and clarifying "ownership" of the content accuracy. Print and Web versions of the content stay in sync. Moreover, this shifts the burden of Web publishing away from the Webmaster bottleneck and back to the authors. But the shift is subtle. Authors are completely shielded from HTML and continue to work in their standard editing applications.

More information: www.avantstar.com