Industry insights

XML 2006: XML, InCopy, and InDesign

Summary: There is no magic bullet.

The presenter spoke about an inherent conflict between structured content and desktop publishing. That’s an interesting way of phrasing it that I hadn’t seen before.

There are several ways to work with XML and InDesign:

• InDesign Exchange format (INX): The INX exchange format produces 18,000 lines of XML for a four-page InDesign document. Hehe.
• Adobe Tagged Text: It’s not XML, but it’s tagged, and might get you started.
• Manual or semi-automated tagging: reasonable features, but well…manual

This is followed by a lengthy demo of the InDesign XML features. If you need details, try the InDesign and XML Technical Reference white paper (which I wrote a while ago).

XML for Magazines

Peter Meirs from Time, Inc. They produce their published layouts, then convert the content to PRISM XML, a “standard XML metadata vocabulary for the publishing industry.”

The first presentation today in which XML is clearly an intermediate format, rather than the storage format.

I missed the introduction, so I don’t know whether they explained this. Presumably, they are not ready to make their authors and publishers work in XML editors. Obviously, XML editors won’t support highly designed magazines, but I wonder whether it isn’t possible to create articles and other content in XML and then flow them into Quark or InDesign to produce the magazines.

Panel, part III

Clyde Hatter of Propylon discusses OpenOffice and XML.

“Most normal people–which includes nobody in this room–would rather eat a plate of broccoli than use an XML editor.”

I like him already.

OpenOffice looks sort of like a modern version of Ventura Publisher, he says.

OpenOffice is in fact an XML editor with a fixed DTD.

“Structured documents can be produced via disciplined use of styles.” Well, yes. But isn’t that the case for any application?

Ah. Constrain OpenOffice further and end up with something that does let you produce useful XML. His case study is the Parliamentary Workbench used by the Irish Parliament. Highlights:

• Style options are constrained and arranged in palettes.
• OpenOffice documents are transformed into LegislationML.
• Legislation is complex because the data model is 700 years old. Hehe.

Panel, continued

Mark Jacobson of Really Strategies launches into the Word part of the session.

He describes WordML as “a better source to convert Word to XML.” In other words, the WordML is now a reasonable starting point to produce actually useful XML.

“Word-based” XML environments often involve post-processing steps in a real XML editor downstream to clean up the problems that are too difficult to resolve in Word.

The decision to look at Word and XML depends on:

• Editorial workflow
• Degree of influence that you have over authors
• Complexity of requirements
• One-off content versus maintained content

XML 2006 panel: Word and OpenOffice for XML authoring

“People have a need to control formatting” says Jon Parsons, of XyEnterprise.

A high-energy, fast-paced walkthrough of word processors versus XML authoring.

And then, the money slide…why put them together?

• Business needs meet corporate culture
• People dislike change
• Technology takes a while but also makes things possible
• If you win the users, you will win with XML content

So far, he has by far the best presentation skills. And some good content, too.

ODF plug-in, continued…

The idea is to get to round-tripping between Word and OpenOffice/ODF. Currently, round-tripping is “poor.”

Youch. The questions are brutal. The presenter made the mistake of focusing more on Microsoft-bashing and politics and is now being reeled in with questions that start like this, “Aside from the political rants, please tell me…”

The ODF format is being justified by the “100-year” issue; state governments are concerned about being able to access their content for the next 100 years.

The plug-in is also intended to help with migration from Word to OpenOffice.

Providing the plug-in removes Microsoft’s argument for submitting Word XML as another standard.

What about batch conversions? “They are not a good idea.” Whaaaa? “Because you can’t predict which documents will have problems.”

One interesting tidbit. All Microsoft formats apparently use RTF at some point. That provides a choke point of sorts that you can use as a jumping-off point.

XML 2006: The ODF Plugin for MS Office

Presentation tip: Don’t read your presentation.

Having said that, the presenter just compared the document debate to Star Wars…with an empire and forces of light. He left it to the attendee to figure out whether Microsoft or the OpenDocument Foundation represents the Empire.

The OpenDocument Foundation has an ODF plugin for Microsoft Office. A 6MB download, it allows you to output ODF format from Microsoft Word. I think.

XML 2006: Project Management panel

I joined two others for a discussion of best practices in XML project management. We were surprised to be in basic agreement — the people are the key.

I made a few people spit their drinks when I said this:

“People can kill your implementation.”

XML 2006: Transitioning from SGML to XML at Cessna

A very interesting presentation from Michael Hahn, focused on the transition Cessna is making from SGML-based to XML-based authoring.

He broke down the conversion issues into three types:

• Tools
• Process
• People

It should come as no surprise that the last one presents the biggest problem. Most of the conferences I attend are tech writer-heavy; this conference is clearly XML Geek Central. It’s interesting to see how this universe perceives authors; for example, in the Cessna session, I heard things like:

• “The changes are basically transparent to the authors, but they’re going to have a fit anyway.”
• “The authors complain whenever we change anything.”

Most of the people here seemed perplexed by the authors and their weird foibles.

LiveBlogging: XML 2006: If I had a hammer…

According to the keynote speaker (who works at Oracle), the purpose of XQuery and a bunch of technology I’ve never heard of (FLWOR, XAP) is to convert the web from a collection of documents to a collection of database-driven applications.

You’ll have to pardon me if this doesn’t make my little heart go pitter-patter. Certainly, there is room for applications on the web, but I fail to see why all content needs to become application-ized.

LiveBlogging: XML 2006 Keynote

The keynote is packed to the gills — hotel staff were stuffing extra chairs into the back of the room at 8:58 a.m. After the usual administrativia, there was a brief interlude to look back at SGML 96, the conference at which XML was first introduced. At the time that XML was developed, it was quite radical, and nobody really knew what would happen with it. Today, of course, XML is a given.

Before discussing the keynote content, let me just give you some free presentation advice: Speak clearly and pay attention to your microphone.

The keynote presenter was Roger Bamford, Principal Architect, Oracle Server Technologies, speaking on the XML/XQuery Ecosystem.

He started with a review of the Olden Days — applications 30 years ago. Highlights:

• The interface was like chess: The user thinks, does something, and then waits for the server response.
• Complexity means that do-it-yourself is not an options. Changes to the system must go through the IT/development group and take months or years.

I suppose it’s not surprising that an Oracle guy is all about databases. It’s interesting because we do our work with minimal interaction with databases, so it’s definitely a new perspective. I am getting that “when you have a hammer, everything feels like a nail” feeling, though.

Fun in Long Beach (?)

Registration has opened for WritersUA. Now in its fifteenth year, the 2007 conference will be in Long Beach, California from March 25-28.

The schedule and session descriptions are available, and they look great.

I will be doing two sessions:

• Coping with the XML Paradigm Shift (my original title was Paradigm Shifts are Never Pretty, so you can see where that one is going)
• Introduction to DITA (a double-length, hands-on session). A few years ago, XML was the buzzword. Now it’s DITA. This session will provide the information you need to make an informed decision about DITA.

In addition, I see presentations from a lot of the Usual Suspects — Char James-Tanny, Neil Perlin, Alan Houser, Jared Spool, Dave Gash, and many, many others.

Don’t miss it.

Play nicely, and share your code

[updated to fix broken link]

Quadralay’s new ePublisher Pro was released with, shall we say, minimal documentation. The user guide describes how to manipulate the basic interface, but details on how to go under the covers and customize the XSL transformations that make up the core of the product are absent.

It appears that the company is trying to address this shortcoming with a wiki. There are some concerns about this approach, though. Char James-Tanny points out that “no one seems to have the rights to any of the material that’s posted.” And Bill Swallow writes this in waxing techcomm: “If the intent is to supply users with a means of online support/reference, I think it would be best to triage the contributed content, have it validated by a company representative, and then published.”

I think the wiki approach raises a larger question–how much documentation should a product creator be responsible for? A product like ePublisher Pro provides a configuration platform–the customization possibilities are endless. For advanced customization, ePublisher Pro is more comparable to a software development environment than a menu-driven application. Documenting a “development platform” is very, very tricky.

Nonetheless, there are some things that Quadralay should have provided and hasn’t. These include:

• An inventory of the XSL transformation files provided with the product and an overview of what each file does.
• Examples of how to perform common customizations that cannot be accomplished inside the user interface.
• Documentation of the Quadralay-provided XSLT extension functions.

Posting these inside the wiki would be a nice start.

Quadralay has tried before to put the expert user community to work (anyone remember the WebWorks Publisher forums on their web site?). But speaking as a consultant, I’m not likely to post into the wiki when the ownership of that code is so unclear. Furthermore, we already have the wwp-users mailing list, which has over 3,000 members. Why bother with the wiki?

Finally, there is a massive disclaimer as part of the wiki:

All projects, code snippets, suggestions presented in this medium are colloborative [sic] materials expressed by both Quadralay personnel and WebWorks power users. Material taken from this medium and implemented into your existing production workflow or testing environments should be carefully considered and is done at your own risk. Although our product support consultants can and will place material on this medium to faciliate collaboration between Quadralay and its customers, Support Incidents submitted through webworks.com regarding issues with implementation of this material will not be accepted. Support for the implementations expressed here will only be supported through this medium.

In other words, if you use information posted on the wiki by Quadralay to customize your project, and it doesn’t work, Quadralay support will not help you.

Boo.

I understand the concerns surrounding wikis and the ability of anyone to edit a page, but it seems this could actually be resolved quite easily. The wiki can be set up with Official and Unofficial pages. Official pages are built by Quadralay employees, are editable only by Quadralay employees, and Quadralay support will provide support for those pages. Unofficial pages are those created by ePublisher Pro users; they are the “use at your own risk” section of the wiki.

A fresh coat of paint for the front door, er, page

Finally, FINALLY we have found some time to update our web site’s front page. We simplified the layout (no more nested nested nested tables), added a live feed from our blog, and did some general housekeeping. Please let us know what you think of the new look.

For the most part, it’s standard HTML/CSS, but we did use XSL to process our blog’s RSS feed.

We are particular interested in getting feedback from those of you running non-Windows, non-Firefox, non-Internet Explorer systems.

A new calendar is also on the way. More on that later this week or next.

Baby Breeze

Adobe announced the availability of Acrobat 8, which now includes Acrobat Connect, the Product Formerly Known as Breeze.

The Product That Formerly Had a Non-Dorky Name is (or was) an online meeting/collaboration/elearning tool. But ex-Breeze (now Connect Professional. Boo) is quite expensive.

With Acrobat 8, though, Adobe is offering a low-end version of Connect, which Claudia McCue promptly dubbed Baby Breeze. For $400 per year, you get an “always-on,” unmetered meeting room for up to 15 people. And a static URL. And a free conference bridge line.

We tried it out last week, and it is very very nice.

I’d like to see the ability to record meetings added to Baby Breeze. Other than that, I’m very impressed.

Right now, Adobe is offering a free trial (and if you convert to a paid account, you keep the URL you establish). If you have any need for web conferencing, take a look.

Source, please?

The DITA hype continues.

The announcement for Arbortext 5.3 is almost completely focused on DITA, and in places reads more like a description of DITA than a press release about a new product. And in the middle, we find this item:

“PTC believes that by the end of 2008, up to 80% of all new XML publishing installations will be based on DITA.” (press release at ptc.com)

Is there research to back this up?

I find it very hard to believe that DITA is appropriate for 80 percent of all XML publishing implementations. Just consider the textbook and magazine publishing industries. Aerospace and pharmaceuticals both have non-DITA standard requirements.

(h/t Gilbane Report News)

New York Times covers Target accessibility lawsuit

This is the first mention that I’ve spotted in major media (my scans of said media are pretty spotty, though).

Again, the reporting seems to break down to, “What [censored] was Target thinking?”

Most online stores go to great lengths to make sure that their sites are accessible to people with disabilities, simply because it is good business to allow as many people as possible to shop. And online-shopping technology specialists say it is not so difficult or costly a task.

About halfway through the article, it suddenly switches over to discussing accessibility in online education programs:

The issue has become critical because many online-only schools became eligible this summer to receive federal student aid. But to get such funds, organizations must adhere to regulations in the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which has been updated to say that all Web sites of groups receiving federal money must be accessible to people with disabilities.

Lots of interesting new information in the article. Read the whole thing.

I’m not alone in my obsession…

This blog features occasional digressions in ancient manuscripts, printing, and the like. So I’m delighted to find a similar tangent on words / myth / ampers & virgule:

“The Museum Plantin-Moretus (Moretus was Plantin’s son-in-law) houses the oldest extant printing press (amid several other presses that are not much newer), punches cut by Claude Garamond himself, over six hundred manuscripts dating back to the ninth century, the company’s nearly complete business archives, and other treasures that earned the museum the designation of a world heritage site.”

Yes, Garamond was a person before he was a font name.

Get heard by Adobe

[updated to strip nasty Word HTML “tags”]

I received a request from Adobe today to distribute a questionnaire:

The Product Management team at Adobe is working towards defining the future roadmap of its leading Technical Communication products.

For this purpose we are trying to collect ideas, feedback and inputs from the technical communication community. This is to request your help in tapping your network to collect some responses to the attached questionnaire. It would be very helpful for us, if you could make this questionnaire available to your clients, users and network.

It should take around 15 minutes to fill the questionnaire. The respondents can fill up either the PDF form (compatible with Adobe Reader 7) or type their responses in the MsWord document. The responses can be sent to me at [email protected] or [email protected]

Do you have feature requests for FrameMaker or RoboHelp? Here’s your chance to send your complaints to someone who can do something about it:

Word version of survey
PDF version of survey

Rethinking the periodic table of elements

[heavy blogging. I must be trying to avoid some unpleasant task.]

Most of you probably don’t know that I spent the first two years of my college career as a chemistry major. When push came to shove, I decided that I would rather serve as editor of the science magazine than take analytical chemistry (which was notorious for an all-consuming laboratory component). And really, who could find working in Gross Chemistry Laboratory appealing? (To add insult to injury, the approach to the chemistry building was a set of steps that were completely unusable by humans, as each stair required about one-and-a-half strides. The joke on campus was that the civil engineering department had designed the stairs. “But Duke doesn’t have a civil engineering program.” “Not any more.”)

In any event, here is a fascinating new look at the periodic table, as a spiral. (h/t New York Times via Feld Thoughts)

Adobe’s new digital publishing platform

This morning, my Google news alerts start pinging me with information about Adobe Digital Editions. This new software, available as a beta from Adobe Labs, is something of a cross between Acrobat Reader and the Flash player. It’s a relatively small download (2.5MB), and it provides for display of PDF or eBook content.

I should know better than to get involved in this one…

Kathy Sierra’s Creating Passionate Users blog is one of my favorites. But her latest entry is entitled Why marketing should make the manuals!

Ugh.

Read the whole thing, and then let’s chat. I’ll wait.

That’s one mystery of the universe explained

FrameMaker users are a loyal, occasionally even fanatical, bunch. The mystery has always been exactly why that is so. After all, there are lots of software tools out there, and many of them are prettier, faster, and cheaper than FrameMaker. But you don’t hear a lot of discussion about the joys of Visio.

Freelancing out of necessity?

I’m not sure I agree with all of this article, but it’s a fascinating perspective on outsourcing, freelancing, and virtual corporations.