It was a going to be a great week. With a spring in my step I walked to my car for the short drive to work. I had my week planned out and was raring to go. Heading to my desk I was intercepted by my manager who was looking slightly flustered! My manager announces that there’s a priority job that has just been received, which involves a large amount of Table content that needs to be placed into S1000D Data Modules and wait for it…The issue now belongs to me!
My manager states that with the amount of tables that need to be converted, most of the work that had been on my schedule has now been pushed back to the following week. This means that I’ve only got the week to convert all of the tables into valid content in the data modules. So much for having a great week!
I start looking through the source files which are Microsoft Word and Excel files. Within the source files, I’ve identified 40 to 50 tables that need to be converted, which range from small tables of only 15-20 rows to the biggest being 400 rows. In most authoring tools, to insert 40 to 50 tables of this capacity, I’m going to need the full week to build tables and then copy and paste individual content from the MS Word and Excel files into the XML Editor.
However, I have a secret weapon that will give me my original scheduled week back and it’s called R4i Writer!
I launch R4i Writer and look into my assigned tasks. I can see that my team leader has provided me with all of the required data modules shells, ready for me to start adding the table content. I check out the first shell and start working. I open the first source file and select the first table and proceed to copy. In my open data module I insert my first table and the Table Editor displays, I then copy and paste the table into the Table Editor window.
My table is now inserted into the Table Editor and saving the table automatically builds the valid CALS compliant table structure within my document.
As my task is to get content into the Data Modules, when using R4i Writer I can easily move onto each of the shells and copy/paste the tables into the Table Editor. I’m rocking this job!
At the end of the day I walk into my manager’s office and advise that all tables have been integrated into the data modules that have been assigned to me – BOOM!
I’m now able to return to my original scheduled week. I then take a moment to reflect on the time that I’ve saved using the smart Table Editor function that’s available within R4i Writer. To see how easy my legacy table conversion process was, refer to my snappy 3 minute video!
Bring on the weekend!
Reeta Nye
