I have a large project coming up, and I want to get a handle on some ideas before I begin implementation. This will be an ongoing project, so any and all suggestion are welcome anytime. (In other words, this thread is never dead) The skinny: My company creates Owner/Operator Manuals for the power generators that we manufacture. Currently, a woman in the copy room copies the appropriate documents put holes in the paper and puts them in a binder. Slow, outdated, all-around "unslick" process.
How I would like to do it, but first a little background: Each generator that we manufacture is "custom built" which means that the manual for the generator is also "custom built". Depending upon the parts that are built into the generator, there are different specification and operation documents that belong to that particular part. Now I've thought of creating a Manual Builder Database. For each generator model I would have a generic format of which documents to include in the manual, and the copy girl can choose (with check boxes?) optional components. Behind the scenes, the database would associate a path and document(s) that belong to the component and "build" (kind of like MSBinder) another document that contains all appropriate (sub?)documents. Now, if all I had were Word docs, this would be a piece of cake. I've already created a sample to do this. Unfortunately, I have a combination of pdf files and word docs. I have code that will print a pdf file, but I've got "Developer's Block" and I can't seem to get myself to think about how to pull everything together.
Any ideas?
How I would like to do it, but first a little background: Each generator that we manufacture is "custom built" which means that the manual for the generator is also "custom built". Depending upon the parts that are built into the generator, there are different specification and operation documents that belong to that particular part. Now I've thought of creating a Manual Builder Database. For each generator model I would have a generic format of which documents to include in the manual, and the copy girl can choose (with check boxes?) optional components. Behind the scenes, the database would associate a path and document(s) that belong to the component and "build" (kind of like MSBinder) another document that contains all appropriate (sub?)documents. Now, if all I had were Word docs, this would be a piece of cake. I've already created a sample to do this. Unfortunately, I have a combination of pdf files and word docs. I have code that will print a pdf file, but I've got "Developer's Block" and I can't seem to get myself to think about how to pull everything together.
Any ideas?
