TECHDOC: Multilingual generation of online and offline instructional text

Project idea Supplying technical documentat ion accompanying a product in multiple languages is a growing problem, particularly in Europe with its legislation on the common market. A huge amount of translation work needs to be done when creating and updating technical documentation. In response to these needs, the T E C H D O C project aims at supporting the creation and maintenance of technical documentat ion by knowledge-based, multilingual generation. The idea is to build up a knowledge base that includes a model of the product in question, and to produce documentat ion in multiple languages automatically. At present, the system produces maintenance instructions in English, German, and French. The application domain of TECHD O C is technical manuals, where one has to do with "real-world" texts: the domain is practical instead of a "toy world". At the same time, the language that is used in such manuals tends to be relatively simple; one mostly finds straightforward instructions that have been written with the intention to produce text that can be readily understood by a person who is executing some maintenance activity. Moreover, the structure of manual sections is largely uniform and amenable to formalization.