The purpose of the document is to enable clients to review software
specifications prior to the changes actually being built. In the past, all
changes were defined in a single spec, but we are in the process of
implementing RUP, which requires separate documents for each component - for
example, a screeen has its own UI prototype document, each process has a use
case document and so on.

We're trying to minimise clients' resistance to this change in their
process. We anticipate that they will (understandbly) be reluctant to review
multiple documents, where previously they would only have had one long
document to consider.

I share your reservations about using document objects, and was hoping to
find a technical reason to veto this approach. That's a good point about
conflicts between different versions, as we don't know precisely which our
clients are using.

Thanks for the suggestion about RD fields - not something I'd considered
before, but I'll give it a try.

C

"Robert M. Franz (RMF)" wrote:

Hi Callanish

Callanish wrote:
Sorry, I'm not explaining myself too well! This is what I mean:

1) Insert Object
2) On the Object dialog, select the "Create from File" tab
3) Check "Display as Icon" box, then Browse to the file, and OK

The main document would be a top-level summary document, containing the more
detailed design documents (inserted as above).

Do you think this is a completely mad thing to do? It's not my idea, I'm
just the technical writer! ;-)

OK, I see what you are doing. What is the ultimate purpose of this
document, BTW? Internal usage? Sending off with the product to the
customers?

I would not do it with objects. Inserted objects like this look rather
tricky to me, esp. when you imagine the lifecycle of such a document;
whether it should work on systems with different earlier and/or later
versions of Office installed, too, for instance.

If you really want to have a kind of "table of contents" document
(instead of bringing the content together in one file [directly, or via
INCLUDETEXT fields]), I'd try RD fields.

Greetinx
Robert
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