Strategic XML

Implementation Notes

The following sections describe the steps taken to build the product-manual production system.

Converting the Hard-Copy Manual to XML

Translating a printed document into XML is a lot more involved than just retyping it into a word processor. XML documents are meant to capture not only the content of a document, but also information about its structure. A typical document in a word processor might have paragraph styles, heading styles, and so on that affect how the text is displayed. This is fine, if the only goal is to produce good-looking output for viewing by people.

A well-designed XML document, however, contains much more information than can be conveyed by simple formatting. For instance, take the following note:

Note ...