How to get a non-techie coworker to be able to hand you content and documents in HTML?

Question

I'm working on a public-facing web-based product which has a series of help files.

The coworkers whose job it is to make those help files are fluent in Microsoft Word. They're not fluent in HTML. Their workstations do not include Visual Studio.

So what it looks like is going to happen is they will author the help file contents in Microsoft Word and then I will have to take that content and turn it into the HTML which the site will ultimately render.

Microsoft Word has HTML exporting/saving functionality but last time I looked the output was nightmarish and terrifying to work with.

Updates to this content (and I'm sure there will be many) will be a similar coordination hassle.

I'm tempted to get these coworkers a download link to Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition, but I'm not sure if that will be too difficult for them to use since it may be too much like Visual Studio, which they're not familiar with, and not enough like Word, which has tools they need like spell checking and so forth.

Surely this is not a unique problem. When your team in this area essentially consists of the developers who come up with the code and drop the help files into place, and coworkers who come up with the help file content but aren't techies, what's the best most pain-free way to get them to give you HTML or near-HTML content?

Answer 1

What about setting up a user documentation Wiki for the program, and potentially others?

That way your documentation folks have a "word like" environment to work with, even if they are copying and pasting their content from Word into the Wiki. You have a very tech friendly way of managing the content.

Answer 2

Compromise with your coworkers, and have them use Word, but limited to a specific set of styles, and to use those styles religiously.

In the end, you will be able to "see" those styles in the final HTML product, and you can use XSLT to transform the result from "nightmare" HTML into something far, far cleaner.

In the end, the bulk of the text will be just paragraphs and links. If your coworkers can stick to limited, and consistent formatting, you can tool around the actual formats you get back.

Finally, if you're not happy with the HTML generated, the same applies to the DOCX XML formats. Yes, there's a bunch of "junk" in those files, but the bulk of it can be safely ignored, you just need markers for the specific bits of formatting you wish to use in your documents.

Answer 3

You might also look at a Rich Text Editor like CKEditor or TinyMCE and set it up on an intranet environment so they can upload content and it will be formatted into HTML and ready to go for you. You can edit, publish, and push it live without much trouble.