A Quick Guide to Mastering Content Reuse in Technical Documentation

Technical documentation is critical for companies that want their customers to effectively and efficiently use their products. Documentation such as user manuals, implementation guides, troubleshooting guides, and knowledge base articles are essential. However, they can take a lot of time and effort to produce, especially for large-scale documentation projects.

Implementing a content-reuse strategy can help documentation teams produce technical content faster while ensuring accuracy and consistency across document types and channels. We wrote this guide to show you how content reuse can help improve the quality of your documentation and the speed at which you can deliver it.

You’ve been tasked with improving the technical documentation your team creates. Phrases such as “make it more consistent”, “publish it faster”, and “find a way to reduce translation costs” were used. You get it. Producing all the technical documentation needed to support your products can be time- and resource-consuming. And that documentation is critical for the successful use of your products.

Enter content reuse.

Content reuse is the practice of creating modular, independent units of content that you can use in multiple publications. Examples of content reuse include topics, sections, paragraphs, sentences, and even words.

Often referred to as topic-based authoring, content reuse allows you to create content faster because you only create it once and then reuse it in any documentation you need.

For content reuse to work, you create and manage your content in one location, such as a component content management system (CCMS). This creates a single source for your technical documentation.

There are many benefits of content reuse:

• Efficiency: Your content team can work faster because they aren’t recreating the same content repeatedly, or spending their time copying and pasting the same content. Content reuse eliminates redundant content creation and removes the need for the dreaded copy-paste.
• Consistency: Improve the customer experience by ensuring that all your technical documentation is uniform in terms of terminology, tone, and formatting, as well as the actual information itself. 
• Scalability: If you frequently change your content or need to update the same piece across multiple documents or publication channels, content reuse enables you to make those changes faster. Just change the source content, and it will automatically update everywhere it’s reused.
• Cost Savings: Translation costs can be high when you have a lot of technical documentation created and managed as separate assets. Content reuse enables you to translate the source content once and apply the translation to all other content that uses it. There are also cost savings related to content creation and maintenance because, again, you are dealing with a single content source.

Two types of content reuse are essential to understand. First, typical content reuse involves breaking content into smaller, reusable modules or snippets. Examples of content reuse include common procedures, reusable frequently asked questions (FAQs), procedural steps, definitions, and descriptions of terms or key concepts. You can also apply content reuse to images, code snippets, tables, or diagrams. In all these examples, the content is reused without modification. 

Another type of content reuse is conditional reuse. In this case, you reuse content with variations such as audience, product version, or format. 

For example, you have a product named differently in several countries. The product works the same way; it’s just called a different name. To enable content reuse, you create your documentation, but instead of using the product name, you add a variable to represent the product name. When sending the documentation to a publishing channel, you select the value that the variable should be published with. 

Conditional reuse can also be applied to sections of content. A good example is creating user manuals for subscription levels in a SaaS product. All subscription levels have access to the same basic product content, but users of the professional edition also have access to additional features. In this example, you can apply a condition that indicates a section or paragraph should only be included in the manual for the professional edition. 

Both types of content reuse can be used together or separately, allowing documentation teams to reuse content across all types of documentation.

While content reuse helps documentation teams create accurate, consistent technical documentation faster, it’s not an approach you should take lightly. You need a plan and process in place to ensure your reuse strategy works well.

There are four things you need to do to create an effective reuse strategy:

Not all content is reusable. Analyze your existing content to find out what content you can reuse. Start by conducting a content audit to identify repetitive or similar content. Create a spreadsheet of the documentation you create, and list each section and its content.

Once you complete your spreadsheet, go through it and identify repetitive or similar content. Create a second tab in your spreadsheet that defines reusable modules, topics, or fragments, and then note in the documentation where that reusable content will replace the existing content.

You can do the same thing for conditional content reuse. Identify in the content audit where variables or conditional content can be applied and define those conditional content items in another tab.

Once you have identified your reuse opportunities, create a plan to implement them.

For content reuse to work, you need to adopt a structured authoring model. This model defines how your content is broken down into topics and sets the rules for taxonomy and metadata.

From a technical perspective, this requires using XML (eXtensible Markup Language) or another structured authoring format. While your team should understand how XML works, they don’t necessarily need to know how to write it if you use the right CCMS.

Structured authoring breaks technical publications into modules or sections (or topics), allowing multiple writers to work on a publication simultaneously. A structured authoring approach separates content from presentation so that writers can focus on the content, not how it’s formatted. By separating content from presentation, you can create content once and publish it in multiple formats and channels, making better use of your content.

To ensure your technical writers can find and use content, you must apply taxonomy and metadata to each piece of reusable content.

Develop a taxonomy that reflects the different ways you can reuse content. A taxonomy that includes product type, document type, content format, user role, and other relevant categories helps you identify where content can be applied in new documentation.

In addition, metadata such as who created it, when it was created and last updated, and other relevant information should be included to help technical writers know what content is right to reuse in their work and who to involve during updates.

While you don’t necessarily need a CCMS to write structured content, it does make the process much easier. 

For example, Paligo CCMS provides content reuse through its XML-based structured content and single-sourcing model. 

You can reuse full topics or sections and apply conditional content and dynamic variables. 

For companies that translate their content into multiple languages, Paligo supports translation out of the box for internal translation teams and integrates with translation service providers. 

How do you determine if you need a CCMS like Paligo? Consider the following:

• Do you create many types of technical content where there is a lot of reuse between document types?
• Do you publish your content to multiple channels?
• Do you translate your content into multiple languages?
• Do you have to manage product variations across countries or markets to support different product names or regulatory compliance?  
• Do you have a product with multiple editions where some features are available only in higher editions?

If you answered yes to one or more of these, consider implementing a CCMS.

Also, think about how that content is managed. Do you have a review and approval process that includes writers, subject matter experts, editors, legal reviewers, and other persons or teams that need to be involved in the creation and ongoing management of your technical content? Attempting to manage this process manually would be challenging and prone to errors, including missing proper reviews, auditing changes, or tracking versions.

There are many use cases for content reuse, some of which we’ve already mentioned. 

• Product Documentation: If you manage documentation for an application that has several additions (like a SaaS application), reuse helps you create one set of technical content, hiding information on features for higher editions. If you produce several products with overlapping features, you can create the documentation for that feature once and use it in the documentation for each product (see the Intapp example below).
• Multiple Languages: The cost of translating content can be very high because you often translate content that is already formatted. By implementing content reuse, you separate content from its presentation, leading to less work by translators to reproduce the content. They also only have to translate the content once because only the original source needs to be translated.
• Multiple Publishing Formats: Many companies produce technical documentation in several formats. Along with PDF manuals, documentation may be delivered to customer portals, knowledgebases, or content delivery platforms like Zoomin and FluidTopics. A content reuse strategy allows you to create your technical content once and then publish it in multiple formats, adding new formats or channels as they arise. 
• Standardized Training Materials: You can reuse your technical documentation for training, ensuring end-user training materials and guides are continuously updated with the latest product changes (assuming you keep your documentation current). 

Let’s take a look at a couple of real-world examples where content reuse helped improve technical documentation processes.

Intapp is a software solutions company for professional services companies. It provides both cloud-based and on-premises software solutions, all of which require technical documentation. The company implemented Paligo CCMS to help its small documentation team manage all the necessary documentation. 

Content reuse was a key requirement for Intapp partly because it offered both cloud and on-premise versions of some software applications and didn’t want to develop separate documentation for each when many of the features and functionality were the same. 

Intapp is also creating a new platform, DealCloud, that duplicates content from other applications, and content reuse enables the team to reuse content from those applications in the documentation for the new platform. 

We have numerous products and tons of guides, and finally, we as a team can use the same extracts (aka snippets) for, let’s say, copyright or Preface. The same with layouts and styling. And we no longer need to copy and paste the same settings/snippets to different projects. We just have one, the right one. – Intapp Information Developer

Crane Pumps and Systems manufactures pumps and accessories for municipal, residential, commercial, and other key markets. With these products comes the need for technical documentation. 

The company was dealing with inconsistent product documentation, producing duplicate content with no links to related literature. They also wanted to deliver content to mobile phones, but its existing strategy did not allow it.

By implementing Paligo CCMS, Crane created a single source of truth for its documentation, reduced the time it takes to change its content, and provided new channels for publishing content, including mobile. 

These are only two of the many real-world examples of how content reuse helps companies improve their technical documentation processes. You can check out more here. 

Implementing a content reuse strategy doesn’t come without its challenges. We’ll address three challenges and the solutions to overcome them. 

First, if your content is not structured to start, you will need to structure it before reuse can happen. The initial time investment in restructuring content can be significant if you have a lot of technical content and your audit reveals a lot of opportunity for reuse. 

The best approach to a structured content initiative is to start small and gradually expand your reuse practices. You could start with all new content or documentation worked on in the last six months. Or you could apply reuse to content as it needs to be updated. Check out this great guide to help you figure out the best content migration process for you. 

Change is hard when you’re used to working a certain way for so long. Your technical documentation team already has established processes and tools they use to create and manage technical content. Asking them to change to a new approach, a new set of processes, and new tools can lead to resistance.

A successful content reuse project involves team members from the start. Implement a training program that trains writers and other team members on what structured content is and how reuse works. Assign writers to perform the content audits and review them as a team to identify areas of reuse. Work together to define a roadmap for migrating documentation to a structured format, including quality assurance testing to ensure the documentation is accurate and reuse works as expected. 

You also need to create a set of guidelines for how the writers create new documentation and apply reuse, as well as how reuse is applied to content as it’s migrated to a structured content model. These guidelines support existing writers and become part of the training material for new team members.

Are there situations where you can manage structured content and leverage reuse without a CCMS? Yes, but in these situations, you only have a small amount of content to manage. 

A CCMS is highly recommended for organizations with:

• Extensive documentation across multiple products or versions.
• Multiple output formats (PDF, web, mobile).
• Multilingual documentation requirements.
• Complex review and approval workflows.
• Growing content sets that need to be future-proofed.

A CCMS like Paligo offers many capabilities to support your technical documentation team. Along with providing the ability to create and manage structured content and reuse content across documentation projects, Paligo also provides audit trails to track changes to content and versioning to allow writers to work on documentation updates prior to them going live. 

When you have many people involved in creating and managing technical documentation, a CCMS is good to have. Writers can create content and share it for review with subject matter experts, workflow rules can define the review and approval process to ensure content is always accurate and consistent, and translation management capabilities can support internal translation teams or integration with third-party translation providers. The idea of trying to manage complex documentation teams and processes without a CCMS doesn’t make sense.

So far, we’ve explained content reuse and how a structured content model supports reuse. We have also provided some use cases and real-world examples and discussed some challenges you will face implementing reuse within your organization and documentation team. Now, let’s take a look at some best practices to implement for long-term success.

Designing a content reuse strategy is not a one-and-done activity. You should incorporate regular checkpoints and reviews of content to ensure:

• Your team is implementing reuse following guidelines.
• New opportunities for reuse are identified and implemented.

We mentioned the need to establish reuse guidelines above, but we’re repeating them because it is very important to ensure a successful content reuse strategy. Reuse guidelines should include identifying reuse opportunities, where to look for reusable content, and most importantly, how to create a reusable piece of content. Guidelines should include:

• Your structured content model
• How to write different types of reusable content
• How to apply taxonomy and metadata
• Voice and brand guidelines

And don’t just create the guidelines. Train the team on how to use them. Review them regularly, make changes as your content changes, and regularly perform quality checks to ensure they are being followed.

It takes a team to write technical documentation. From the writers and editors to the subject matter experts, product managers, legal reviewers, and other stakeholders, many people are involved in delivering consistent, accurate content. 

Find ways to foster collaboration within your team. Develop guidelines explaining how team members work together and each person’s role and responsibilities. Finally, regular training sessions and check-ins should be set up, and a support process should be created to provide support as they perform their work.

Last but not least, invest in a robust component content management system to help you manage your technical documentation. There are a number of CCMS platforms available, but they are not identical, so it’s important to document your specific requirements and look for a CCMS that provides them.

Some CCMS platforms are more complex to use than others. Some support DITA, while others are XML-based. Collaboration capabilities will differ, as do approaches to preparing content for publication (and the different publishing channels they support).

Think about the team and how it works. When you implement a CCMS, some processes will need to change, and others will be created, including structured content and reuse processes. You want a CCMS and a support team that will help you develop a roadmap for success.

A big part of setting up a successful reuse strategy is not only considering what can be reused but also what shouldn’t. Reuse is a powerful tool for efficiency but it can also be implemented where it is not needed, creating a situation where it’s too complex for writers to maintain updates. 

A good reuse strategy creates an effective workflow that saves you time. So, keep in mind that not everything needs to be reused. Noting what works well and what doesn’t also contributes to a good reuse strategy. Sometimes the best reuse strategy is to opt for duplication. 

Mastering content reuse transforms technical documentation from a resource-intensive burden into a strategic asset. It isn’t just a time-saver; it’s a way to boost efficiency, consistency, and scalability in your technical content processes. 

Evaluate your current workflows, identify areas for improvement, and take the first step toward optimizing your technical documentation process. Look for ways to embrace structured authoring, foster collaboration, and incorporate the best tools for success.

When you are ready, request a demo of Paligo today to see how the right CCMS can empower your team to unlock the full potential of content reuse.