I had a bunch of things to do yesterday, one of which was to write this blog. Another was to write a report for my boss. In turns out that doing the latter has given me inspiration for the former. I’m talking about navigating through documents.

We “knowledge workers” spend a great deal of time sifting through documents of one sort or another. We pick our way through websites, articles, reports, datasheets, manuals, spreadsheets gleaning the information we need and often creating yet another document. Hopefully, adding some value along the way with the expertise that we bring to the selection and presentation of the information, our insights and conclusions.

This information gathering process is non-linear, and well suited to the computer screen where you can have multiple windows open and move freely between them. I’ve blogged previously (see “Guiding Principles” ) about creating documents that are easy for the recipient to consume – by which I mean, easy to read, navigate through, and find the information they need.

So why return to this subject? The reason is an observation I made of a relative of mine who was trying to find out how to set up a new TV, ready for the World Cup. The device arrived with no printed manual, but a CD-ROM with the manuals for numerous languages in PDF. “What do I do with this?” was his first question. Although I was there and could have done the job in no time, I decided to see how well this relative (we’ll call him Bill) could cope with using gDoc Fusion which I had previously installed on his slightly ancient computer.

The CD-ROM was well laid out in terms of folders but there was no welcome screen or menu. Without some prompting from me Bill would never have found the English manual. Once he’d done so, I stepped back to watch how he got on. With the document on screen, he began to page through it, but I could tell he wasn’t comfortable.

In the “real” world, design, layout and typography and the conventions of the written word provide the structure. A table of contents at the front, an index at the back and so on. Had he been reading a physical document, Bill would have relied on these conventions alone, but once in the context of a computer screen, Bill expected more. He assumed the document content itself would guide him, in the manner of a web page, and although he successfully navigated around the document with the usual keys (he’s not keen on the mouse) he thought it could have been easier.

Bill as you can probably tell is not an expert user, and it reminded me that there remains a divide between documents designed for the printed page and those designed for the screen. As software developers we have to find ways to make documents that were not designed for the screen easier to view, navigate and search in that environment. Authors need to consider their audience and create material suited to their needs. In this case, the TV manufacturer could have presented the manual in HTML or as a landscape PDF with lots of hyperlinks. Nor is it an either/or situation – there are plenty of authoring environments that support this type of multi-channel output from a single source.

By the way, Bill succeeded in tuning his new TV, but after England’s performance was not sure it was worth it!

Following the launch of gDoc Fusion last year and the variety of market feedback received, the Global Graphics development team set about creating gDoc Fusion 2.5 which launches today. This product aims to tackle the fact that, according to research over three quarters (77%) of UK office workers said they have found business software difficult to use.

The reality is that organisations need to review the applications available to staff and tackle the issue head on with a software application that fits the purpose and eases the common day-to-day activity of e-document creation. gDoc Fusion 2.5 allows multiple incompatible files to be merged into a single document through a simple drag and drop action. It enables users to create a summary, report or other document that combines spreadsheets, slides, images, text, PDFs and more than 200 other types of document. Essentially this isn’t just a generic product upgrade as the new functions genuinely improve functionality and ease of use.

Here is a bit more on what’s new:
Assembly View – collate, convert, read and share documents from over 200 different formats in a single view page. New page preview functions save extra time and ‘page stacks’ feature allows easy organisation of chapters or document sections

Multi-format viewer – gDoc Fusion is now able to view more than 200 word processor, spreadsheet, image and drawing formats
LaunchPad – Compact interface that takes up a minimum of screen space, making it easy to use drag-and-drop action to open the files

30-day trial – Full product functionality now available for a 30-day evaluation period. After 30 days the product still provides free multi-format viewing and PDF creation
Flick View – saves time and printing costs by allowing users to quickly visually search through the pages to find information, just like a physical document.

As always we are keen to get individual feedback so please do check it out for yourself at http://www.globalgraphics.com/gdoc and let us know what you think.

I’ll leave you with a review from Angela Eager, senior analyst at Ovum, independent technology analyst, who believes that “the solution is very timely and well aligned with the requirements of enterprises that require an inexpensive and flexible way to quickly assemble documents from pages in different formats for tasks such as report creation.”

The issue of integrating technology systems when two companies merge through acquisition is not new but organisations risk losing valuable corporate knowledge if employees can’t easily access any document they need from either business.

Even prior to an acquisition, the due diligence process requires solicitors and accountants to access hundreds of documents for analysis and forensic accounting. These documents may be held in legacy technology systems that are not easy to convert to a readable format, taking precious time and resources to resolve.

As a result of the acquisition there may be staff changes, office moves and restructuring, all contributing to the possible loss of corporate knowledge held in varying document formats.
A key benefit of gDoc Fusion is the ability to quickly and easily translate and merge over 200 types of incompatible document files into a single document through a simple drag and drop action, even though the original application is not available. Users can create a summary, report or other document that can combine disparate documents such as spreadsheets, slides, images or text in one simple operation, then save the result in a format everybody can handle: PDF.

So solicitors and accountants can rest assured that all nighters at the office during an acquisition will no longer be down to simply trying to convert one key document into a readable format!