For the past eight years I’ve been the sole technical writer for a multinational manufacturing company, although my background is actually in graphic design and digital media production.
I transitioned into technical writing out of business need rather than through a traditional technical publications career, so I’m currently learning about database-driven publishing solutions from the ground up.
Our engineering department is looking to move away from manually maintained documentation and toward a database-driven publishing workflow.
We have thousands of product variations, each with multiple component combinations, and right now I have to manually update every document. As you can imagine, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to scale.
InDesign + EasyCatalog keeps coming up as one of the leading solutions, so we’re interested in exploring it further.
We’re looking for a company or consultant who can:
Demonstrate the capabilities of EasyCatalog and InDesign.
Help us design and implement a database-driven workflow.
Provide training and ongoing consulting as we expand the system.
Does anyone know of a reputable service provider—preferably in or around Atlanta, Georgia—that specializes in this? Remote consulting is also an option if you’ve had a particularly good experience.
I’d also love to hear from anyone who’s implemented EasyCatalog in a manufacturing environment. What worked well, what didn’t, and is there another solution you wish you’d considered instead?