Single sourcing

Single sourcing is the equivalent of the ‘Create Once, Publish Everywhere’ (COPE) concept, which refers to content that can be created only once and published wherever needed – as the name says – all from a central repository. Organizations can implement this concept by working with structured content. Structured or componentized content is based on a way of authoring where content is written, reviewed and approved only once, free from any formatting and design elements. Content created with this method is granular and has the unique feature of being reusable.

Once approved, authors can reuse a content component wherever and as often as needed in any digital or print output: from user manuals and medical device technical documentation to digital billboards and smart device screens. By single-sourcing content, writers ensure that content is consistent throughout thousands of deliverables of an organization’s global content. Content operation teams gain further efficiencies during the content maintenance stage as changes to the source component ripple down through all its usage instances, enabling automatic content updates.