draft - Introduction to HMIS book 1 & DHIS manual

After a quite long vacation, it is time to get back to work. I have
come up with a fairly painless workflow to get from PDF to DocBook for
the Indian manuals. My plan at the moment is to extract all of the
images and text as seperate pieces and the reassemble everything in
DocBook format. It will be a lot of copying and pasting, but I suspect
there is not much of an easier way to get from PageMaker to DocBook
anyway. The extraction process is pretty straight forward with Linux.
It would seem that there is a fair amount of duplication with the
DocBook manuals, as they were to a large degree based on the original
manuals received from India sometime back. There is also a few
sections which are not totally applicable to the main branch at the
moment at least. I am thinking specifically about the section on the
mobile application, but there are some others as well.

I was wondering if I should go ahead and do this, and whether the
group would be comfortable with me excercising some editorial leeway
to make the manual more general.

Best regards,
Jason

···

On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 6:13 PM, Knut Staring <knutst@gmail.com> wrote:

Great Arunima. I suppose we would ideally have all the pagemaker files, but
it would be good if you could start with a few so we can have a look at the
format and how to transform to DocBook.
Also, I assume it is fine for us to put the nice PDFs up on http://dhis2.org
and http://hisp.info?
Knut

On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 1:27 PM, arunima s mukherjee <arunimam@gmail.com> > wrote:

hi jason/knut

will send pagemaker files. quite heavy files... so will take some time.
also pls let me know, what are the kind of documents you'd need

and yes jason, will like to be part of the DHIS 2 documentation team to
create standardized user manuals

regards
arunima

2009/12/14 Jason Pickering <jason.p.pickering@gmail.com>

Hi Sundeep,

I see, but they are PDF files. Are there no PageMaker, Scribus or Word
files (or anything else) that have been used to generate the PDF
files? I have the older version I think
(http://folk.uio.no/knutst/pub/usermanual/\) which were somewhat easier
to convert to DocBook format than PDF.

But if you do not have anything else, I guess it is very urgent to
convert them to DocBook or another format so that you can make changes
to them.

Best regards,
Jason

On 12/14/09, Sundeep Sahay <sundeep.sahay@yahoo.com> wrote:
> The files you have are the only files which we have
> there are no separate source files
>
> --- On Mon, 12/14/09, Jason Pickering <jason.p.pickering@gmail.com> >>> > wrote:
>
>
> From: Jason Pickering <jason.p.pickering@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: draft - Introduction to HMIS book 1 & DHIS manual
> To: "arunima s mukherjee" <arunimam@gmail.com>
> Cc: "Sundeep Sahay" <sundeep.sahay@yahoo.com>, knutst@gmail.com
> Date: Monday, December 14, 2009, 2:34 AM
>
>
> Hi Arunima,
> Thanks for this. This is clearly a pretty major update from the last
> set of documents that I had received from India via Knut.
>
> As you may have know, we have been working to consolidate the
> documentation for DHIS 2 around a centralized, distributed platform
> using the DocBook format. I realize that this may not be a requirement
> for India, although it might be, but I would be very interested to
> receive the source files ( I assume Word or other format) for
> conversion and inclusion in the main DHIS2 documentation project. I
> have adapted a lot of the older version of the India manuals , but
> some of it was either out of date, or too specific for a general
> manual. I have quickly looked through these files, and there is quite
> a bit more material that could be adapted to the general user manual.
>
> Given that you have obviously spent a lot of time in writing this
> manual, would you still be interested in collaborating with the DHIS 2
> documentation team to create a more standardized user manual?
>
> Best regards,
> Jason
>
>
>
>
> On 12/14/09, arunima s mukherjee <arunimam@gmail.com> wrote:
>> hello jason
>>
>> enclosed pls find two documents
>> 1. DHIS2 User Manual
>> 2. HMIS Book 1 - essential components of HMIS
>>
>> will mail other documents subsequently
>>
>> regards
>> arunima
>>
>> 2009/12/14 Sundeep Sahay <sundeep.sahay@yahoo.com>
>>
>>> sorry jason, i sent you just the foreward part of the two books
>>> i am requesting arunima to send you the full copies of the two books
>>> nd sure, we will be very happy to collaborate
>>>
>>> --- On *Sat, 12/12/09, Jason Pickering >>> >>> <jason.p.pickering@gmail.com>*wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> From: Jason Pickering <jason.p.pickering@gmail.com>
>>> Subject: Re: draft - Introduction to HMIS book 1 & DHIS manual
>>> To: "Sundeep Sahay" <sundeep.sahay@yahoo.com>
>>> Cc: knutst@gmail.com
>>> Date: Saturday, December 12, 2009, 6:37 AM
>>>
>>> Hi Sundeep,
>>>
>>> Is there more that is being drafted? I only received a single page.
>>>
>>> Would you be willing to collaborate with us on the DocBook manuals we
>>> have
>>> been drafting?
>>>
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>> Jason
>>>
>>> On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 2:25 PM, Sundeep Sahay >>> >>> >>> >>> <sundeep.sahay@yahoo.com<http://us.mc376.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=sundeep.sahay@yahoo.com&gt; >>> >>> > wrote:
>>>
>>>> jason, these are two draft books under finalization with us
>>>> feedback will be appreciated
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --- On *Thu, 12/10/09, arunima s mukherjee >>> >>>> >>> >>>> <arunimam@gmail.com<http://us.mc376.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=arunimam@gmail.com&gt; >>> >>>> >* wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> From: arunima s mukherjee
>>>>
>>>> <arunimam@gmail.com<http://us.mc376.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=arunimam@gmail.com&gt;
>>>> >
>>>> Subject: Fwd: draft - Introduction to HMIS book 1 & DHIS manual
>>>> To: "Sundeep Sahay"
>>>>
>>>> <sundeep.sahay@yahoo.com<http://us.mc376.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=sundeep.sahay@yahoo.com&gt;
>>>> >
>>>> Date: Thursday, December 10, 2009, 4:17 AM
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> sent
>>>>
>>>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>>> From: arunima s mukherjee
>>>>
>>>> <arunimam@gmail.com<http://us.mc376.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=arunimam@gmail.com&gt;
>>>> >
>>>> Date: 2009/12/10
>>>> Subject: draft - Introduction to HMIS book 1 & DHIS manual
>>>> To: "T. Sundararaman"
>>>>
>>>> <sundararaman.t@gmail.com<http://us.mc376.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=sundararaman.t@gmail.com&gt;
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> dear sundar sir,
>>>>
>>>> for your feedback/comments
>>>>
>>>> regards
>>>> arunima
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
>
>

--
Cheers,
Knut Staring

Excellent, Jason.

I think this is a fabulous initiative, and fully support your approach. It will for sure be a lot of work, but it will be truly great for the project to have the professional manual created in India in a flexible DocBook format.

In the medium term (but needed very soon in several countries), we have to consider translations. I have been wondering whether it would be beneficial or detrimental to run the text through Google first, and then have people correct the translations. Not sure if there are ways to enable non-techie people to help out with translations without having to worry about dealing with Bazaar or XML.

We do face that same question also for DHIS 2 itself, though we do have the i18n tool and a number of other tools exist for properties files. Additionally, Launchpad has a nice GUI for translations, but it seems to need transformations with our .properties files, and many people will still prefer to work offline.

Knut

···

On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 1:15 PM, Jason Pickering jason.p.pickering@gmail.com wrote:

After a quite long vacation, it is time to get back to work. I have

come up with a fairly painless workflow to get from PDF to DocBook for

the Indian manuals. My plan at the moment is to extract all of the

images and text as seperate pieces and the reassemble everything in

DocBook format. It will be a lot of copying and pasting, but I suspect

there is not much of an easier way to get from PageMaker to DocBook

anyway. The extraction process is pretty straight forward with Linux.

It would seem that there is a fair amount of duplication with the

DocBook manuals, as they were to a large degree based on the original

manuals received from India sometime back. There is also a few

sections which are not totally applicable to the main branch at the

moment at least. I am thinking specifically about the section on the

mobile application, but there are some others as well.

I was wondering if I should go ahead and do this, and whether the

group would be comfortable with me excercising some editorial leeway

to make the manual more general.

Best regards,

Jason

On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 6:13 PM, Knut Staring knutst@gmail.com wrote:

Great Arunima. I suppose we would ideally have all the pagemaker files, but

it would be good if you could start with a few so we can have a look at the

format and how to transform to DocBook.

Also, I assume it is fine for us to put the nice PDFs up on http://dhis2.org

and http://hisp.info?

Knut

On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 1:27 PM, arunima s mukherjee arunimam@gmail.com > > > wrote:

hi jason/knut

will send pagemaker files. quite heavy files… so will take some time.

also pls let me know, what are the kind of documents you’d need

and yes jason, will like to be part of the DHIS 2 documentation team to

create standardized user manuals

regards

arunima

2009/12/14 Jason Pickering jason.p.pickering@gmail.com

Hi Sundeep,

I see, but they are PDF files. Are there no PageMaker, Scribus or Word

files (or anything else) that have been used to generate the PDF

files? I have the older version I think

(http://folk.uio.no/knutst/pub/usermanual/) which were somewhat easier

to convert to DocBook format than PDF.

But if you do not have anything else, I guess it is very urgent to

convert them to DocBook or another format so that you can make changes

to them.

Best regards,

Jason

On 12/14/09, Sundeep Sahay sundeep.sahay@yahoo.com wrote:

The files you have are the only files which we have

there are no separate source files

— On Mon, 12/14/09, Jason Pickering jason.p.pickering@gmail.com > > >>> > wrote:

From: Jason Pickering jason.p.pickering@gmail.com

Subject: Re: draft - Introduction to HMIS book 1 & DHIS manual

To: “arunima s mukherjee” arunimam@gmail.com

Cc: “Sundeep Sahay” sundeep.sahay@yahoo.com, knutst@gmail.com

Date: Monday, December 14, 2009, 2:34 AM

Hi Arunima,

Thanks for this. This is clearly a pretty major update from the last

set of documents that I had received from India via Knut.

As you may have know, we have been working to consolidate the

documentation for DHIS 2 around a centralized, distributed platform

using the DocBook format. I realize that this may not be a requirement

for India, although it might be, but I would be very interested to

receive the source files ( I assume Word or other format) for

conversion and inclusion in the main DHIS2 documentation project. I

have adapted a lot of the older version of the India manuals , but

some of it was either out of date, or too specific for a general

manual. I have quickly looked through these files, and there is quite

a bit more material that could be adapted to the general user manual.

Given that you have obviously spent a lot of time in writing this

manual, would you still be interested in collaborating with the DHIS 2

documentation team to create a more standardized user manual?

Best regards,

Jason

On 12/14/09, arunima s mukherjee arunimam@gmail.com wrote:

hello jason

enclosed pls find two documents

  1. DHIS2 User Manual
  1. HMIS Book 1 - essential components of HMIS

will mail other documents subsequently

regards

arunima

2009/12/14 Sundeep Sahay sundeep.sahay@yahoo.com

sorry jason, i sent you just the foreward part of the two books

i am requesting arunima to send you the full copies of the two books

nd sure, we will be very happy to collaborate

— On *Sat, 12/12/09, Jason Pickering > > >>> >>> jason.p.pickering@gmail.com*wrote:

From: Jason Pickering jason.p.pickering@gmail.com

Subject: Re: draft - Introduction to HMIS book 1 & DHIS manual

To: “Sundeep Sahay” sundeep.sahay@yahoo.com

Cc: knutst@gmail.com

Date: Saturday, December 12, 2009, 6:37 AM

Hi Sundeep,

Is there more that is being drafted? I only received a single page.

Would you be willing to collaborate with us on the DocBook manuals we

have

been drafting?

Best regards,

Jason

On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 2:25 PM, Sundeep Sahay

<sundeep.sahay@yahoo.com<http://us.mc376.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=sundeep.sahay@yahoo.com>

wrote:

jason, these are two draft books under finalization with us

feedback will be appreciated

— On *Thu, 12/10/09, arunima s mukherjee

<arunimam@gmail.com<http://us.mc376.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=arunimam@gmail.com>

  • wrote:

From: arunima s mukherjee

<arunimam@gmail.com<http://us.mc376.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=arunimam@gmail.com>

Subject: Fwd: draft - Introduction to HMIS book 1 & DHIS manual

To: “Sundeep Sahay”

<sundeep.sahay@yahoo.com<http://us.mc376.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=sundeep.sahay@yahoo.com>

Date: Thursday, December 10, 2009, 4:17 AM

sent

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: arunima s mukherjee

<arunimam@gmail.com<http://us.mc376.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=arunimam@gmail.com>

Date: 2009/12/10

Subject: draft - Introduction to HMIS book 1 & DHIS manual

To: “T. Sundararaman”

<sundararaman.t@gmail.com<http://us.mc376.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=sundararaman.t@gmail.com>

dear sundar sir,

for your feedback/comments

regards

arunima

Cheers,

Knut Staring


Cheers,
Knut Staring

Thanks for taking this initiative… Just go ahead and make the changes you feel are required. I will go over and update the technical docs soon.

Lars

···

On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 1:15 PM, Jason Pickering jason.p.pickering@gmail.com wrote:

After a quite long vacation, it is time to get back to work. I have

come up with a fairly painless workflow to get from PDF to DocBook for

the Indian manuals. My plan at the moment is to extract all of the

images and text as seperate pieces and the reassemble everything in

DocBook format. It will be a lot of copying and pasting, but I suspect

there is not much of an easier way to get from PageMaker to DocBook

anyway. The extraction process is pretty straight forward with Linux.

It would seem that there is a fair amount of duplication with the

DocBook manuals, as they were to a large degree based on the original

manuals received from India sometime back. There is also a few

sections which are not totally applicable to the main branch at the

moment at least. I am thinking specifically about the section on the

mobile application, but there are some others as well.

I was wondering if I should go ahead and do this, and whether the

group would be comfortable with me excercising some editorial leeway

to make the manual more general.