Customer Solutions - Manuals

This page presents a PatternStream customer using PatternStream to publish a manual. 

Manual Solution One

Nicor Gas (formerly Northern Illinois Gas Company) serves nearly two million customers in the northern third of Illinois, excluding the city of Chicago. Since formation in 1954, it has grown to become the largest natural gas distribution company in Illinois and one of the largest in the nation. Nicor Gas provides safe and reliable natural gas service to more than 5.7 million people living and working in 641 communities. Nicor Gas also transports and stores natural gas for nearly 129,000 commercial, industrial and residential customers who purchase their own gas supplies.

FML is worked with Naperville, Illinois based Comply Enterprises and northern Virginia based Alive Multimedia to develop, load, and implement a system to publish Nicor’s Gas Construction Specification (GCIS) manual. Specification elements are maintained in a Microsoft Access database and published as specification documents into FrameMaker using PatternStream. The specifications are automatically saved as PDF files for distribution to the field on CD-ROM discs. Database published and FrameMaker implemented hyperlinks provide users a mechanism for navigating through the more than 837 PDF specification documents including individual pages and embedded references. A separate set of templates also publishes for print distribution.