Re: Importance of XML in single sourcing?

[David_Slonosky -at- i2 -dot- com]

Having XML output is nice, but you need some way to turn that output into
more readable and formatted text for it to be valuable.

Basically,

XML + transformation process = text in desired format (HTML, PDF, and so
on)

But,

AuthorIT + transformation process = text in desired format (HTML, PDF, and
so on)

It looks like (and I'm looking at the web site, so I'm guessing) ArborText
has the transformation process as a pricey add-on. (E3) While AuthorIT has
the transformation process built in to the tool.

So as was already pointed out, you don't need XML to do single-sourcing.
And even having XML doesn't do you a lot of good unless you have some means
to read the XML and produce text in the format you want. And there's not a
lot of stuff out there right now that will take your XML and create
documentation-type output.

There are a couple of neat things I've been looking at on the IBM
DeveloperWorks site (have a look for DITA and Toot-O-Matic), but they are
exceptions rather than the rule. And also not super user-friendly if you're
not into the stuff surrounding XML, at least at a medium level.

David



                                                                                                                                  
                    ebarker -at- omiintl -dot- com                                                                                           
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We are a 4-person tech writing department at a software company and are
looking at content management tools. We've narrowed it down to Arbortext
and AuthorIt.

How important is it to create XML content? AuthorIt does not store XML and
it's not an XML editor, though it can import XML documents.




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