COSIMA 7.0 from DOCUFY – automatic, practical, excellent technical documentation

DOCUFY presents a new release of its COSIMA Component Content Management System (CCMS) in time for the tekom industry trade fair. The developers have again created numerous new features for COSIMA 7.0, which makes working with the software even more convenient and further increases its level of automation. For example, DOCUFY Layouter allows users to create their own layouts for PDF publishing and to “igle” (add item numbers to illustrations) directly in COSIMA. Maintenance tables showing the specific maintenance activities to be carried out in the respective maintenance interval, which are automatically linked to instructions, have been added. New asynchronous synchronization of publications and topics between COSIMA and TopicPilot now also allows use in restrictive network environments.

Bamberg, Germany, September 12, 2017. – Creating comprehensive technical documentation for every conceivable machine variant in just a few hours: Automatic information publishing in a perfect, CI-compliant layout, for use on mobile end-user devices or as a PDF, is every technical writer’s ideal way of working. Now release 7.0 of the COSIMA CCMS from DOCUFY makes that dream a reality. COSIMA 7.0 has an even stronger focus on user benefits and achieves the feat of making complex tasks easy to manage, allowing writers to spend their time creating content rather than wasting it on extraneous tasks such as correcting layouts.

DOCUFY Layouter – create individual layouts for PDF publishing

The new DOCUFY Layouter now automatically ensures the consistent presentation of all published documents. The tool makes it simple to design publication layouts for PDFs and, in the future, for the mobile publication platform TopicPilot. An easy-to-use interface allows users to set as many layout criteria as they need and use them flexibly to publish a variety of layouts. Because they have to efficiently manage a large number of different layout requirements for their many clients, this new feature is also a highlight for documentation service providers. Customer-specific adaptation of page layouts, fonts, text and design element colors, cover page design and, of course, the position of the company logo on the title page and in the header can be quickly and easily carried out and saved using DOCUFY Layouter.

Add item numbers to images (igle-ing) directly in COSIMA

The new “igle-ing” tool also significantly reduces workloads. To add item numbers to images (known in technical terminology as “igle-ing” the images), a COSIMA user can open the image in an editor with the appropriate tools. Item numbers can be aligned, moved, deleted, copied and inserted directly in COSIMA. Existing images without callout information can also be converted into IGLE images during editing and igled accordingly. To allow the precise positioning of item numbers, users can zoom in and out when editing images. The callout information can also be used to automatically generate image keys.

Automatic maintenance tables with links to the respective topics

The new automatically generated maintenance tables also save time and reduce stress. COSIMA offers semantic tables of maintenance tasks and intervals that are easy to maintain and are automatically published as maintenance tables. They make service technicians’ lives easier, because the individual maintenance stages are linked to the respective instructions in COSIMA. Check boxes show which maintenance activities have to be carried out in the respective maintenance interval.

Asynchronous transfers between COSIMA and TopicPilot

Transfers between the COSIMA CCMS and TopicPilot as the Content Delivery Portal can be carried out rapidly across system boundaries. New asynchronous synchronization of publications and topics between COSIMA and TopicPilot now also allows use in restrictive network environments. Optimized alignment saves time and reduces transfer costs.

COSIMA solves problems created by the requirements of Industry 4.0

Uwe Reißenweber, General Manager of DOCUFY GmbH, comments on the new COSIMA release: "With COSIMA 7.0, our developers have again brought technical documentation further into the age of digitalization and Industry 4.0. The new COSIMA release still lets users put together documents from topics by dragging and dropping, and filter individual manuals from master documents. They can also generate product-specific documentation based on product configurations wholly automatically, thanks to the freely configurable classification system. It defines an Information Space in which all the relevant information can be stored and clearly identified. Our publication configurator uses this Information Space to generate any required document individually and fully automatically. Where variants are produced in runs as low as a single unit, that is the only way to work efficiently and in compliance with the applicable laws. This means COSIMA ideally equips our customers for the challenges of Industry 4.0."