Recommendations for storing project documents for shared access?

Question

I am currently using Microsoft Word to write the various documents required for a project - concept of operations, requirements, test plans, etc. These documents are placed on a network share for others to view. If someone wants to edit the document, they must communicate this fact somehow to anyone else who is likely to be modifying it. Occasionally, I save off a copy and put the date in the file name as a crude backup and versioning system.

I want a better way to create and maintain these documents! Some desired features:

1. Easy for others to access documentation.
2. Collaborative editing.
3. Version control, history, rollback capabilities.
4. Easy-to-use, particular WYSIWYG editing.
5. Great formatting capabilities, such as the ability to insert images and otherwise produce fantastic looking documentation,
6. Easy to create printed version for when contractual obligations require it.
7. Easy to simultaneously create/edit multiple parts of a document.
8. Searching.

I have tried using Subversion and TortoiseSVN to gain version control over these Word documents, but many users find Subversion (and version control) awkward to learn and resist this method.

Wikis

I am considering the use of a wiki, but I have concerns. It would need full WYSIWYG editing to gain the support of other authors, and the ability to produce a deliverable (ideally a professional looking hard copy of each document) is a must have requirement.

I suspect that there are some better wikis out there than the ones I have used, but do not know if they are powerful enough. Maybe I am going about this problem the wrong way and some other tool or technique is better?

So, the two part question:

1. What types of tool(s) are most appropriate for my needs?
2. What specific tool(s) would you recommend?

UPDATE: I want to thank everyone who contributed to this question. It took me quite a while to get through all the suggestions and I learned a lot. For now, I will continue business as usual.

Aaron's suggestion to look at MoinMoin led me into a long evaluation of wiki software which I eventually narrowed down to MoinMoin, DokuWiki, and MediaWiki. Only MoinMoin supports what I considered a usable WYSIWYG editor--the other two had plug-in options that I found awkward.

My evaluation led me to eventually relax the WYSIWYG requirement. It is more of a nice-to-have now.

I completely agree with those who say you want the documentation to be living. However, I also cannot give a CD of the wiki to customers either. I will continue looking into other options.

Answer 1

I personally find that using a source control system is the best. I use SourceGear's Vault product and lke it due to its great support for internet communications, and the client tool is very easy to use, where even my non-technical users get along with it ok.

Answer 2

You may want to try Microsoft Office Groove. It is a group collaboration software that works through Microsoft Office. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/groove/

Answer 3

If you're in a Microsoft environment, and have a SharePoint server set up, it does a good job with Word documents (including revision history, locking to prevent simultaneous edits, etc.), and can be accessed from the internet.

Answer 4

I found that Word is most often used for WORN documentation (write once, read never).

Let's face it: Word documents are just a big jumble of text, searching is pitiful, there is little structure besides sections and you have no version history. Browsers have a history, Word doesn't: You can't go back to where you just were. While it has a UI (I'd rather not say "nice") and the recent versions crash much less often, the question remains what you want to achieve? Create a desert of words for the landfill? Or do you want to create a living documentation where all changes can be tracked, where anyone can fix mistakes or make comments, where images stay where they are put, and where no fool can ruin your work (and that fool doesn't have to work at your company). Plus you don't need any special software to help. Any web browser from anywhere in the intranet will do (mind this bug in Firefox, though).

So from my experience in the past, I recommend a wiki. They are simple to use, simple to learn and you can even extend them (if you need graphs, for example). I've used both MoinMoin and MediaWiki for the purpose.

I like MoinMoin more:

• It's faster
• It's easier to use
• It's way easier to setup
• It comes with a WYSIWYG editor (but be sure to try the latest version)
• You can create a distributed wiki with MoinMoin by saving the page data in a subversion repository. Merging is a bit tricky (you either need to rename files or merge manually and add the final result as a new version)
• Extending MoinMoin (if none of the 500+ plugins works for you) is very easy

The main issue with Wikis is not that they don't get the job done but that people frown upon it. They are used to Word: If you only know a hammer, you try to treat everything as a nail. But when you gently introduce them and set some firm rules (so they won't feel floating in the void), they will quickly come to love what wikis can do.

And if you really have to, you can even save Word documents in it (or anything else, unlike Word).

Now for your concerns:

• Printing: Wiki's are not meant to be printed. Period. That would defy their very purpose. So the solution is to dump the wiki on a CD (either as fully linked HTML or as a fully working wiki) and hand that to the customer. 100% power at no extra cost.
• UI While the "UI" of Wikis is not at par with Word, I'd say that simple is better in this case. Also, everyone knows how to use a browser, so there is no training necessary to use the wiki and the online help for all the cool features is just one click away.
• Formatting options In Word, you have to format everything yourself. In a Wiki, you can define a parser (for example for code blocks) which does the formatting for you. The key here is to understand that having to use the bold/italic/font-name buttons in the UI is actually a bad thing. The more different fonts you use, the more confusing your document looks. Professional word processing software will always limit the number of available formatting options in the template for this very reason: People that write text just don't know what looks good.

PS: Make sure your users understand that wikis work by keyword, not by folder. In my last job, I came back one morning to find that someone had renamed all pages like "project/something/keyword" to "give them structure". Yeah, all links were broken :(

[EDIT] If all else fails, you should be able to export the wiki somehow. For MoinMoin, this should help: http://moinmo.in/4ct10n/show/ActionMarket/PdfAction (the docs are very confusing, though).

Answer 5

The more documents are in a path of least resistence to access and edit, the more they will be used and edited.

The problem with word is that it isn't instant in or out. You always have to download it and open it and upload it again..

I have been trying to figure this out using today's tools. I use the Wiki in FogBugz but it's not as full featured as a word processor for writing a printable, nicely formatted spec. Yeah, I could extract the XML and render it to a page, etc., but I have paying projects to work on. Things like page breaks, etc, just don't work in it from what I could find. I hope they address it in future versions.

My most recent experiment is Google Docs, and linking that document to a wiki. What this does is provide the fantastic web-based word processor of Google docs with it's central accessibility and the ability for multiple people to edit it.

So far it's been nice. I wish Fogbugz would have Google Docs integration in it's wiki as it would solve all my problems. I produce formatted documents that have to look good. I don't want to waste time in word copying and pasting, I'd rather like to type it once, be centrally accessible, and it be good for everyone.

If theres any other ideas that people could share it would be great!