Review of ReWorx 2003
By Matthew Ellison
Contents
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Introduction 
ReWorx is a wizard-driven tool for converting regular Word documents to easily navigable online manuals. It supports a single-sourcing strategy by enabling content to be created and maintained as a Word document, but quickly converted at any time on demand to an online version with rich navigation.
ReWorx is one of three products marketed by Australia-based RepubliCorp under the Virtual Media brand, the other two being HDK 3.6 and XDK 2002. ReWorx borrows from the underlying code of XDK, which is a fully interactive Help authoring tool. However, ReWorx is designed to be a much simpler product that can be used easily without needing to learn a new authoring environment.
Earlier this summer, a 2003 version of the product was released in two editions: standard and professional. This article briefly reviews both new editions.
User Interface and Operation
What kind of tool is ReWorx?
The ReWorx paradigm is similar to that of WebWorks Publisher for Word (see David’s Knopf’s recent review of WebWorks Publisher) in that it publishes Word documents to an online format. However, ReWorx is designed to be a much simpler product with a less extensive UI and range of features. The intent is for you to be able to set up a document conversion very quickly and easily. Although this ease of use is achieved at the expense of some of the power and flexibility of WebWorks Publisher, it's still possible to generate well-styled online documents with rich navigation, including table of contents, index, full-text search, glossary, hyperlinks, and even popups.
The ReWorx user interface
On installation of the product, a ReWorx toolbar is added to Word—this toolbar contains an option for initiating a document conversion, in addition to three Help and Support options.
ReWorx toolbar in Word
During the document conversion, ReWorx maps elements of the Word documents to their online equivalents. For example: sections of the document become topics in the online system, cross-references become hyperlinks, Word paragraph styles are mapped to CSS classes, etc. ReWorx enables you to help establish these mappings by stepping through a wizard the first time you convert the document. The conversion wizard also provides a somewhat limited conditional text facility by enabling you to specify a color of text that you do not wish to be included in the online version.
Once you have been through the conversion wizard once, all your settings are saved, and there is no need to step through the wizard again unless you wish to change any of the mappings. The advantage is that once the mappings are set up, only Microsoft Word expertise is required to update the document and generate subsequent online versions. This can be a significant benefit in corporate environments where subject-matter experts (who are probably not specialist authors) are often required to maintain and contribute to web-based content.
How ReWorx creates an online document hierarchy
Unlike WebWorks Publisher and other conversion tools, ReWorx does not require the document to have a table of contents in Word in order to create an online TOC. Instead, it bases the online TOC directly on the heading styles used within the document. You have complete control over which Word paragraph styles are to be treated as headings, and the level that each of these headings should appear in hierarchy of the online TOC. It's also possible to specify paragraph styles that will map to topics, but that will not appear in the online table of contents. This is useful for short topics such as definitions and field descriptions, and ReWorx even enables you to link automatically to these topics from every occurrence of the title throughout the rest of the online document.
The following screenshot shows how you set these style mappings within the conversion wizard:
Second stage of ReWorx conversion wizard
How ReWorx formats the online document
ReWorx enables you to set specific values for the full range of properties within the CSS classes that it maps from the Word paragraph styles. This provides you with very tight control over the formatting of the online document, but does rely on the original Word document having been formatted using styles rather than with arbitrary manual formatting.
How ReWorx maps cross-references
Some of the mappings from the Word document to their online equivalents are made completely automatically without you needing to set anything in the wizard. For example, cross-references of the form “see page 5” (where 5 is inserted as a PAGEREF Word field) are converted to a hyperlink of the form “see Sales Information”—ReWorx removes the word “page” and replaces the page number with the title of the cross-referenced topic.
The downside of this approach is that it can sometimes create undesired results. For example, a cross reference of the form “see Sales Information on page 5” would map to “see Sales Information on Sales Information” in the online version.
How ReWorx adds further value
One of the most powerful aspects of ReWorx is the option to add a wide range of what it calls “Global Properties” to the online output. These include, for example, the ability to append a list of links to related topics at the foot of each topic. Note that these links do not have to exist as cross-reference in the Word document source—instead, ReWorx actually generates them automatically based on topic relationships.
For example, you can choose to have ReWorx add links to all child topics, which provides a route for users to navigate deeper down the topic hierarchy. As an example of this, here is the Word source and online output for a sample section from a manual:
Source section in Word
Resulting online topic
The ReWorx Output Formats
The range of online formats that you can generate from ReWorx is the main differentiator between the two editions of the product.
ReWorx 2003 Standard Edition only offers you a single output option: a browser-based HTML output that includes a navigation pane with contents, find (full-text search), and index options. This navigation pane uses an auto-sensing navigation system that RepubliCorp calls SmarTOC™—this means that it detects the type of browser that the reader is using and automatically loads the appropriate navigation technology. This is how the output looks in Internet Explorer 6:
SmarTOC™ output displayed in IE6
ReWorx 2003 Professional Edition offers the option of generating either a compiled HTML Help (.chm) file, or a Microsoft Help 2 (.hxs) file, and it enables you to include a programmer’s header file. It can therefore be used as a tool for generating context-sensitive Help. The Professional Edition also supports a browser-based HTML output with the SmarTOC™ navigation system, and includes a number of alternative navigation technologies that can be used instead. As an example, the “Republico ActiveX TOC” has the advantage that it highlights full-text search terms within topic content—however, it is only compatible with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser, and is therefore not a suitable choice for end users who may be using Netscape or other browsers.
Performance
To test the performance of ReWorx Professional, I downloaded from the Internet a typical 54-page user manual that contained a variety of text formats, several tables, and an average of 2 images per page. It took me about 45 minutes to create the necessary Word document template and set up the options in the ReWorx wizard in order to obtain a satisfactory HTML Help output with appropriate formatting for online viewing.
Having been through the ReWorx conversion wizard once, subsequent conversions took approximately 30 seconds from start to finish. I was using a Pentium 4 PC with a 1.5 GHz CPU and 512 MB of RAM.
Summary
ReWorx succeeds well at marrying a sophisticated conversion engine with an exceptionally simple user interface. While it does not have quite the same level of power and flexibility as WebWorks Publisher, it's a product that can be used straight out of the box with almost no learning curve. It's capable of generating professional-looking output with rich navigation that would meet the needs of many organizations that need to publish Word documents online.
Although the Professional version can be used as a tool for authoring context-sensitive Help, it may not provide the flexibility and control offered by an interactive Help authoring tool such as XDK or RoboHelp.
Strengths
- Quickly converts regular Word documents, requiring a minimum of special preparation or markup
- Generates an HTML-based output that is compatible with a wide range of different browsers
- Can automatically insert links to related topics based on the structure and hierarchy of the online document
- Enables fine control of the formatting of specific styles in the online system using CSS
- After initial set-up, requires only Word skills for maintenance of online document
Weaknesses
- Does not match the power and flexibility of some other document conversion tools
- Limited pattern matching and mapping of cross-references (restricted to removing the word “page”)
- Implementation of conditional text using color is somewhat inflexible and restrictive
- Cross-browser output functionality lacks some of the features of the alternative ActiveX and DHTML TOC technologies in ReWorx Professional
For further information about ReWorx, refer to the Virtual Media web site at http://www.vmtech.com/reworx.htm.
Matthew has been a popular speaker at WinWriters events throughout the world since 1997. He currently contributes to the design of WinWriters conference programs. Matthew also runs his own independent training and consulting company that specializes in online Help design and technology. Matthew holds a B.Sc. in Electronic Engineering and a Post-Graduate Certificate of Education from Bristol University in the UK. He is also a Certified RoboHelp Instructor. Matthew can be reached at: matthew.ellison@email.com.
