How to choose
S1000D software.

What does S1000D software have to do?

S1000D defines the data, not the software. The specification requires a common source database to hold and manage the data modules, but, as its own site puts it, it “does not define its functionality or otherwise”. What a tool does is up to the vendor. What it must do is up to you.

In practice five jobs have to be covered, by one suite or by several tools: keep the modules, write them, check them, publish them and view them. Two more are often bought as a service: converting legacy manuals and drawing the illustrations.

Which tools exist for each job?

A selection, not a ranking, in the vendors’ own terms:

One suite or several tools?

Several vendors cover most of the jobs in one suite: RWS with Contenta and LiveContent, Boeing with Spectrum, Pennant with R4i, 4D Concept with ADAM. A suite means one contract, one support line and parts that are made to work together. Separate tools let you take the best editor or the best viewer for your team, and they keep you from depending on one vendor for everything.

Either way, the data has to move as plain S1000D XML. A NAVSEA guideline of 2014 makes the point that “system and tool independence is a necessity for interoperability across distributed S1000D implementations”. The test is simple: export a complete project and load it into another tool.

Twelve questions to ask every vendor

Put the same questions to every vendor, including us, and ask for a demonstration on your own manuals, not on theirs.

1. Which issues of S1000D does it read, write and check?

The contract fixes the issue, often for decades, and a yard may need several at once. NAVSEA’s acquisition guide advises confirming that the government’s and the vendors’ tools can support an issue before choosing it. Which tools name which issues today is in our article on Issue 7.

2. Does it check against a chain of BREX?

Business rules come in layers: the specification’s, the customer’s, the project’s. Sweden’s FMV requires deliveries to “refer to the agreed (chain of) BREX”. Ask to see one module checked against every layer, and what the tool does with a rule it cannot run. What a BREX can and cannot check is in what the BREX checks.

3. What does the CSDB do beyond storing files?

The specification leaves it open, so ask. NAVSEA lists what a CSDB must support: “controlled authoring, publication, quality assurance, data exchange/sharing with partners”, and delivery of manuals on various media.

4. Can it exchange data packages with your customer and your suppliers?

Deliveries travel as packages. FMV requires that “Data dispatch notes in file based transfer packages must include an S1000D conformant data delivery list.” Ask for an import and an export of a real package.

5. Can you take all your data with you?

Export a complete project, with data modules, publication modules, illustrations, the BREX and the history, and load it somewhere else. If that needs the vendor’s help, you depend on the vendor.

6. How does it handle applicability?

Variants decide much of the effort on ships and aircraft. FMV requires that “Applicability information must always be provided with human readable annotations”. Ask how the tool shows which module applies to which hull or configuration, and how it filters a publication.

7. How do suppliers deliver into it?

Much of the content comes from equipment suppliers. Ask whether they can deliver modules into it, how those are checked on arrival and whether you can reuse them across publications. NAVSEA calls the ability to reuse data “one of the greatest benefits of S1000D”.

8. Where does it run, and who has to approve it?

On a defence programme, software has to pass your security accreditation. NAVSEA warns that securing the tests and certifications “can take a considerable, and sometimes indeterminate, amount of time”. Ask which deployments the vendor offers, on your servers, hosted or in the cloud, and which of them have been accredited where.

9. How are review and approval recorded?

FMV requires that “Delivered information must be first verified” before delivery. Ask how comments, approvals and their history are kept, and whether a reviewer sees the source next to the module.

10. What does the viewer need?

The technician reads the result, often on board and without a network. Ask which devices and operating systems the viewer runs on, whether it works offline and what it costs per seat.

11. If it uses AI, where does the model run, and what can a reviewer check?

Ask where your manuals go when the model reads them, and whether every generated statement can be traced to its source. For UK defence, the Ministry of Defence’s directive on AI, JSP 936, asks that “Data provenance must be assured and recorded from the point of collection to ingestion by the AI.”

12. What does it cost over the life of the programme?

Licences are only the start. Ask for the price per user and per year, maintenance, upgrades to new issues, hosting, training and the cost of leaving.

What do the tools cost?

Most vendors quote on request. These publish a price:

The tools are the smaller part of the budget. The work of converting and keeping the modules current costs far more, as the public numbers in what S1000D really costs show.

Where AI fits

AI reaches S1000D in two ways. General writing assistants arrive inside the editors: XMetaL 20.0 connects to assistants such as Grok and DeepSeek, and oXygen sells its Enterprise editions as “AI-ready”. Services and platforms built for technical publications draft or update the modules themselves: HCLTech describes a framework that drafts documents “aligned with S1000D schemas”, and Infosys a “cloud-based, API-driven solution” that updates S1000D and iSpec 2200 publications from approved changes, with people checking at critical stages.

For controlled documentation, two answers decide whether an AI tool is usable: where the model runs, and whether a reviewer can check every statement against its source. Ask both, then test the tool on one of your own manuals.

Where Tracium fits

Tracium belongs in the last row of the table. It reads supplier manuals in PDF, Word and Excel, drafts the data modules, checks them against S1000D and your business rules, links every step to the page it came from and exports S1000D XML or PDF. It runs on your own servers. Put the twelve questions to us too.