More XML-Based Publishing?
September 15, 2003
Seybold was a very busy week for me, so I didn’t really get a chance to step back and really think about what trends seemed to be represented there. However, it does seem like there is more XML-based publishing going on. And this includes publishing to print, through desktop engines such as Quark Express and Adobe InDesign.
The conversations I had on the show floor seemed to indicate this expanded emphasis on XML comes largely from the requirement for simultaneous output to print, the Web, and other electronic formats. Nothing new there, of course, but the reality seems to be setting in that multiple output publishing is here to stay. As I have said elsewhere, conventional wisdom says everyone's "second business is publishing"; now everyone's second business is multiple output publishing. So, if that is the case, and XML does the job, it follows to use XML, doesn't it? Not always, of course, but apparently in more and more cases.
I hope that this new emphasis doesn't lead people down a path of complex, nearly impossible implementations of XML. Most documents can be supported by very simple XML Document Type Definitions (DTDs) or schemas, some of which are already in the public domain. (Although some of the public domain ones are also over-engineered and difficult to implement, too, so be careful there as well.) Keep the initial implementation very simple, starting with a pilot and going from there.
Bill Trippe
btrippe@nmpub.com
Posted by Bill Trippe at September 15, 2003 10:59 PM
