Doctrain: In.vision Xpress Author for Microsoft Word
posted by Loring
Michael Boses, CTO
Invision Research (www.invisionresearch.com)

Yes, Virginia, you can author XML in Word.

Company founded in 1996. Xpress Author for Word launched in 2002. Early markets were defense intelligence, central government, and pharmaceutical industry.

Focused on enabling Web 2.0 technologies with structured authoring.

In.vision provides structured authoring interface inside Word. Toolbars configured for XML are displayed. Menus are also tailored for XML authoring. Based on the cursor location in the document, only valid items show up in the menu. So you can't insert a figure where only a title is valid.

Authoring based on styles. The styles drop-down list shows valid elements based on where you've clicked in the document.

Templates available. For example, create a document using the text book template, [Type title here] is displayed where you'll type the chapter title, placeholders for objectives, review questions, further reading are also displayed. Boilerplate text can also be saved in the template.

You can copy and paste content (including graphics) from other types of documents -- standard Word documents, spreadsheet, browser. Even a table with merged cells can be copied and pasted into structured doc. Structure is automatically applied.

Word's beloved revision tracking and commenting features are supported. This information is stored as metadata in the document, and you can specify the type of comment based on your defined structured (such as a legal or draft comment).

Spell checking and thesaurus are also supported.

You can display a document map, which shows headings in the document. Click on headings to navigate through document.

What happens when you paste content into an invalid location? When you right click to paste the content in an invalid location, the drop-down menu Paste item is grayed out. If you Ctrl-V to paste, the cursor flashes to indicate illegal action (too subtle an indication for my tastes), or you can configure the program to display a friendly dialog box.

How do you see the XML tags? I found Michael's response entertaining: We have a promise to the users never to show the tags. Not the answer I had hoped for!!!!! You can, however, export the document to XML and then display and/or edit the file in an XML authoring tool (Oxygen and XmetaL are my personal favorites, BTW).

Unfortunately the demo ran short, so we didn't get to see much else, which is unfortunate. The web site (http://www.invisionresearch.com/xpress.html) doesn't offer much detailed information, but do check out the brochure: http://www.invisionresearch.com/pdfs/xpressauthor.pdf. I have to chuckle at the front page of the brochure. Envision a suited gentleman with white hair and furrowed brow. "If you're frustrated with XML authoring, we have a Word for you." The photo says it all.

Based on what I saw, Xpress Author might be a good alternative for technically challenged content providers or companies married to Word. It isn't, and doesn't pretend to be, a heavy-duty XML authoring tool.
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