Jabin White XML Tools Seybold-Boston 2001 Jabin White Executive Director, Electronic Publishing Services Harcourt Health Sciences

Jabin White Our Topics Introductions What is XML? Overview of tool types, including samples from each category The “people” issues “War Stories” -- lessons learned Conclusions

Jabin White Who Am I? Started as Editorial Assistant, then DE Learned SGML in 1995 at Mosby Moved to Williams & Wilkins in 1997, merged with Lippincott-Raven in ‘98 -- started “front-end” initiative Unbound Medicine in 2000 as Content Specialist -- developing content for use on Palm, Web, anything Harcourt Health Sciences in November, 2000, as Executive Director, Electronic Publishing Services

Jabin White What Is Harcourt Health Sciences? Publishes under the imprints of Mosby, W.B. Saunders, and Churchill Livingstone Global operations, including Philadelphia, St. Louis, New York, London, Edinburgh Publish content for health care professionals -- doctors, nurses, allied health professionals Wide variety of books, journals, periodicals, electronic products (MD Consult)

Jabin White What is XML eXtensible Markup Language A set of rules that allow content creators to create their own markup tags, apply those tags, and share them with others A subset of SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) More powerful than HTML because someone (Tim Berners-Lee) made up all the tags you can use in HTML “Document Typing” is powerful, because you can target tags to your specific content needs

Jabin White How XML Came About SGML was being used, but was “too hard” Ease of HTML results in explosion of web Companies try to make HTML do things that Berners-Lee never intended it to do “Dynamic” HTML diverged into Microsoft version and Netscape version

Jabin White How XML Came About (cont’d) XML is a result of W3C effort to standardize on extending HTML tags Announced as development effort in Boston at SGML ‘96 Announced as “recommendation” in Washington at SGML/XML ’97 Telling that SGML/XML ’97 became XML ‘98

Jabin White HardestEasiest

Jabin White Jabin’s Shopping List Other MarkupSGML/XML Languages Bread Bread Milk Milk Bananas Bananas Beans Beans </list>

Jabin White The goals of XML’s Designers XML shall be straightforwardly usable over the Internet. XML shall support a wide variety of applications. XML shall be compatible with SGML. It shall be easy to write programs which process XML documents. The number of optional features in XML is to be kept to the absolute minimum, ideally zero. XML documents should be human-legible and reasonably clear. The XML design should be prepared quickly. The design of XML shall be formal and concise. XML documents shall be easy to create. Terseness in XML markup is of minimal importance. From W3C XML page

Jabin White Who said this? “When we looked at what was happening with e-commerce a few years ago, it was clear that what was needed was a completely new set of technologies that would help companies do business online in new ways, and improve the performance of their existing business processes. XML is the foundation for that. … We’re betting the company on XML and what it can do for businesses and consumers.” Bill Gates, Chief Software Architect, Microsoft Corporation

Jabin White Overview of XML Tools DTD/Schema creators Stylesheet creators XSLT Processors XML Editors –Different “classes” of editors

Jabin White DTD and Schema Creators Emacs Excelon Stylus XML Spy

Jabin White XSL(T) or Stylesheet Editors XML Spy XML Cooktop Emacs (with Xslide)

Jabin White XSLT Processors Saxon MSXML Xalan XT (MS Java and JVM versions) Sablotron Infoteria Oracle Unicorn

Jabin White XML Editors Structured Editors –Xmetal, XML Spy, Epic, Excelon Stylus, XML ProXmetalXML SpyXML Pro MS Word Plug-ins –WorxSE, I4I’s S4/TextWorxSE Post editing conversion tools –Inera’s eXtyles (see Lucas Hendrich’s presentation)

Jabin White Data Conversion There’s nothing like a good conversion vendor “When” you convert is a personal decision – there is no “one size fits all” answer Analyze fiscal and workflow impact at different stages of production cycle

Jabin White When to Convert? In general terms, the earlier, the better Human beings doing markup will always provide smarter tagging than machines Costs absorbed during “traditional” editing process More timely delivery of final files to web Greater file flexibility allows publishers to take advantage of technology for peer review, proof review, etc.

Jabin White Decisions, Decisions Decision to move tagging upstream in the publishing cycle must be an individual one A business decision, not a technology decision The more information, the better –By its nature, SGML/XML is a very “open” community

Jabin White Look inward Examine current tools in use Examine *how* they are being used Strive for consistency across organization (although a purist’s view of XML means that the toolset does not matter) Keep end users’ needs in mind Show users the benefits of using consistent, structured tools

Jabin White Flexible Publishing Engines If you are dealing with XML, anything is possible with stylesheets If not, each different output requires different $$$$ If you have a lot of flexible output requirements, makes argument for media-neutral publishing stronger Can you really predict all data outputs 3-4 years into the future? Apache, Cocoon, JSP Demo

Jabin White Editorial & Production Traditional “wall” must come down for SGML/XML to be effectively entered on front end of publishing cycle

Jabin White Who Tags? Production has and always will drive *format* driven tagging –,,, etc. Editorial, working with authors, should drive intelligent markup The closer to the authors you can get, the better –Please stop laughing

Jabin White Content Front-end XML Publishing Format-level tags using structured tool Assistance in defining tag set, advocate for market-driven electronic products Recognition that “SGML button” does not exist The “roadmap” to intelligent content. All parties must participate. Turns MS over to production, leads definition of tag set DTD, template design, DTD maintenance Not “tech support.” Calls for unique skill set. Assist Editorial in defining tag set Application Support Authors, Marketing, Customers Editorial Production Electronic Publishing Top-level management DTDs XML Expertise

Jabin White War Stories Failure: Re-engineering nightmare Success: Drug reference conversion

Jabin White Stories from the Front – Failure (Re- Engineering Nightmare) 25-journal typesetting group working in Quark Needed to get SGML output Had structured editing tool to supply SGML into Quark Needed to “keep” SGML codes in tact throughout pagination process Tried to use tool to hide SGML tags within Quark, then maintain them on output Too much technology, not enough thought about workflow

Jabin White Stories from the Front – Success (Drug Reference Conversion) Drug reference post-converted into SGML for previous edition Needed to update and make pages Trained staff of 2 editors on structured SGML editing tool Close “application support” throughout the process Delivered high-quality, semantic SGML on schedule Pages composed and electronic product derived from same files Electronic product shipped with book

Jabin White Conclusions People issues matter more than technology issues Tools are getting better … much better Plenty of help available Don’t fall victim to “analysis paralysis,” but take a close look (or have someone else take a close look) at your organization It’s a marathon, not a sprint!

Jabin White Thank You Questions?