[GKL logo] How to publish your QMS on your Intranet
types of document
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general

As noted in the Basic Concepts, you can use a number of file formats for documenting your QMS, and your Web browser will handle them for you. But, they each have their pros and cons, so the choice is not always straightforward. This page contains information about the various document types to help you decide which the best ones are for your purpose.

For each document type, we have tried to cover the relevant data under the following headings:

.html

Html is the basic file format of the WWW; it is the essential building material of the Web. Html is what a Web browser is designed to handle.

pro

con

editing tools

There are many ways of creating and editing html. On the one hand, you can use a simple text editor (such as NotePad) and create the html with that; this means you have to know html in detail, and it won't be usable by the ordinary user. On the other hand, you can use a full text and graphics wysiwyg editor (what you see is what you get); this will be usable by the ordinary user, although the html it produces could be ten times as large as with hand-editing. Some of the possibilities are as follows.

NotePad

  • If you know what you are doing, this is the easiest and simplest way to create and edit html.
  • Unfortunately, this is not a skill which most users will wish to acquire. You will have to do it for them.
  • You get compact code, and fine control over the html which is produced.
  • If you do use hand coding, be sure to use CSS2 (Cascading Style Sheets version 2) so as to achieve a uniform appearance more easily.

    • Microsoft Word

  • You can use Word to create a document, and then save it as html.
  • The html that you get is very complex, and is often at least ten times larger than it need be. It is about the same size as the original Word document (presumably because it contains the same detailed formatting information in case you want to revert to .doc format).
  • You cannot simply use CSS2 with this approach.
  • When you save the .htm file, any graphics etc are saved in an associated folder.
    (If you save xDoc.htm, the associated files are saved in a folder named xDoc_files.)
  • You can insert html hyperlinks (using the menu Insert > Hyperlink).

    • Microsoft FrontPage

  • FrontPage is a wysiwyg editor, so it is relatively easy to use.
  • FrontPage has a propensity to restore the html to the way FrontPage likes it to be. So, if you make manual changes to the html, and then open it again in FrontPage, you may find that your changes have gone.

    • Dreamweaver

  • Dreamweaver is the tool currently in use by most web designers; it is a very powerful tool.
  • It is not cheap.
  • It provides a wysiwyg user interface.

    • .html plus image maps

    You can embed images in an html file straightforwardly ("image" is a general word for a graphics file). Most browsers support only the GIF format (.gif file extension) and the JPEG format (.jpg or .jpeg file extension). What we are referring to as an "image map" is an image which is "clickable". That is to say, you can click on the image and this will activate a hyperlink, thereby transferring you to a new page (or elsewhere on the same page). You can arrange things so that different parts of the image activate different hyperlinks. You would, typically, see this used on a geographic map. But you can usefully use it on different parts of a flowchart (or a process diagram) to "drill down" into the process (ie: go to a further level of detail).

    pro

    con

    editing tools

    Similar comments apply as for .html files. There is the added difficulty of creating an image and its associated "image map". The image map is the data which defines which parts of the image are associated with which hyperlink. The parts of the image are defined in terms of (x,y) coordinates. Working this out by hand is very laborious - you really need software to assist you. Some of the possibilities are as follows.

    NotePad + Visio

  • The comments on NotePad generally apply here too.
  • You can use Visio to draw your picture. Further, you can use Visio to define the parts of the picture which are associated with different hyperlinks. Then, you can save the picture as a .gif file together with the associated html code for the image map. You can then cut and paste the relevant html code into you own html code. This is messy albeit perfectly feasible for an expert, but is out of the question for the ordinary user.

    • Microsoft FrontPage

  • See the previous comments on FrontPage.
  • FrontPage is said to provide facilities for creating image maps.

    • Dreamweaver

  • See the previous comments on Dreamweaver.
  • Dreamweaver has facilities for creating image maps.

    • .pdf

    Portable Document Format (.pdf) is a non-revisable format. That is to say, it is not designed to be edited. It is simply to store finished files. Its main benefit is that it is standard and universal, and there is a reader for it on most common operating systems.

    It has a number of useful features, one of which is its ability to hold hyperlinks. It is this which makes it a possible format for use with your on-line QMS. There will be occasions when .pdf is the right solution (because of its standard format). Mostly, though, its disadvantages will overwhelm its benefits for an on-line QMS.

    The features of PDF are described here.

    pro

    con

    editing tools

    In general, you can't edit .pdf files. You have to edit your files in a "revisable" format, and then convert them to .pdf. There is a large number of ways of making this conversion. Some of them are described below.

    Pdf995

  • To quote the Pdf995 home page:
    " Pdf995 makes it easy and affordable to create professional-quality documents in the popular PDF file format. Its easy-to-use interface helps you to create PDF files by simply selecting the "print" command from any application, creating documents which can be viewed on any computer with a PDF viewer."
  • Pdf995 is free (if you're prepared to accept the ads! - it's cheap if you're not).

    • PrintToPDF

  • To quote the PrintToPDF home page:
    "PrintToPDF is a shareware Macintosh printer driver that creates PDF files. You do not need to have the full Acrobat package (as opposed to the Reader) installed for PrintToPDF to work. You can create PDF bookmarks to your section and subsection headings, and URLs will become hot links. PrintToPDF is not as powerful as Acrobat, but it creates simple PDFs for a much lower price ($20)."
  • PrintToPDF is available on the Web.

    • other PDF tools

  • There are many other PDF tools available on the Web.
  • I have not tested the following, but they are available:

    • .doc (MS Word)

    The Microsoft Word .doc format is actually a set of formats. This is the format which Word uses to store documents.

    We carry no brief for Microsoft - most of the comments made under this heading would apply equally well to any other word processing package.

    pro

    con

    editing tools

    Microsoft Word

  • You simply use Microsoft Word (or whatever word processor you use).

    • Writer in OpenOffice

  • As an alternative to MS Word, you can use Writer in Open Office.
  • This can be downloaded from the Sun MicroSystems Web site.
  • The licence is the GPL so, simply put, this is open source software.

    • .rtf (Rich Text Format)

    Rich Text Format (or .rtf) is a format for word processing files which is less specific to a word processing package than most such formats are. You can use Microsoft Word as an editor and viewer, so most of the comments on .doc files apply here too; the main difference being that you will be less restricted in your choice of word processing package.

    database storage

    It is possible to set up an IT system in which the text of your QMS is held as records in a data base management system (dbms). You could then write software to create your intranet Web pages dynamically, rather than having fixed html or .pdf files which were simply painted by your Web browser. Using dynamic html is a rather complex solution to the simple problem of displaying QMS pages, so it would be done only for a special reason.

    For example, you might have an IT system which is used to schedule your work, or to collect work data and such records. In this case, it might be convenient to make the instructions on what is to be done a part of the IT system. The result would be that you would have your QMS (or a part of it) as part of your IT system.

    How to do this is IT development and is beyond the scope of this paper. You should contact your local IT specialist if you need to set up an application of this sort.

    content management systems

    "Content Management System" is a phrase with a wide meaning. In the context of the Web, it is generally used to mean a system which enables users to update the "content" part of a Web site, without needing to know the technical details of its mechanisms. Indeed, the users will be unable to modify the mechanisms. This is useful for a large Web site with frequently changing data, but is not often likely to be appropriate to a QMS.

    A Content Management System will often be found associated with a Document Management System, and may simply be an adaptation or extension of one. Among other things, a DMS will provide facilities for the control of versions, and for review and approval. If your organisation has such a system already, then it may be appropriate to use it for the QMS. It is unlikely that such a system would be justified by a QMS on its own.

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    [last updated on 10 September 2003]     [Version 1]     [© copyright: Gordon Kirk 2003]    [Comments on this document should be sent to Gordon Kirk.]