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This is the third and final entry in a blog series on writing documents - why the word processor is not the best way to do it, and how to do it better. In the two previous entries, I have:

• Explained the benefits of a more structured approach - an approach in which content is separated cleanly from formatting


• Given an example of such an approach.

In this final post of the series, I will describe a free tool that makes taking this approach just as easy as (if not more than) word processing.

The tool in question, XMLMind XML Editor (XXE), is one of many - there are various lists online, one of the best being provided by the DocBook project's own Wiki. However, I use XXE for 3 reasons:

1. The Standard Edition is free, and this provides enough functionality to write and output DocBook documents


2. With a couple of clicks you can generate output in various forms - HTML for Web browsing, Acrobat (PDF) for download/printing, and various other forms for compatibility with (say) Microsoft Word


3. It is very easy to use, since the interface is "WYSIWYG" - What You See Is What You Get.

What does this last point mean? Simply that using XXE is like using a word processor. Behind the scenes you may be creating XML, but you wouldn't know it - as document author, you write formatted text and see the results on screen just as in any word processor. For example, you can break a document into sections and sub-sections, place text in bold and italic, enter quotations, and so on. There are DocBook features for most common word processing tasks: bibliographies, cross references, footnotes, glossaries, embedded graphics, indexes, tables, and so on. You can even add attributed comments for collaborative working.

There is an XXE tutorial that explains how to write documents using the program, and gives you tips and tricks to speed up your work. I found that 30 minutes invested in this tutorial was enough to get going.

What you won't find anywhere in the tutorial, or in XXE itself, is information on how to specify fonts for pieces of text, customize the layout of pages, change paragraph formatting, etc. This is because, as explained in the previous blog entries, the whole point of using a structured approach is to let you as document author concentrate on content - and forget about document design. Not only are most people who write documents neither interested in nor qualified to design the documents they write, but by far the best approach is to apply preset formats to all your documents - formats that:

• Have been created by professional designers


• Are standardized across your organization and/or for the purpose of the particular document in question


• Not only enable output of the document in different forms but also guarantee stylistic consistency between these forms.

TAKE AWAY

Many of us spend a large proportion of our time entering text into a computer, often to create text documents (as opposed to say, spreadsheets). Typically this is done using a word processor, for example Microsoft Word. This blog series has asked: why?

Even the advanced features of modern word processors can be reproduced using an approach based on simple XML - and there is no need as an author ever to see this XML. You can write a "structured document", in which content is cleanly separated from formatting, without ever seeing a single XML tag - using WYSIWTG tools that have the same kind of interface as a word processor. What's more, such tools are available for free.

And once you start working in this way, the advantages are many and varied. As mentioned in previous blog entries, you can store such written materials in a repository, that is searchable not only on text keywords but according to the internal structure of the documents it contains. You also gain the very useful ability to generate various different forms of output from a single document with little or no effort - both for printing and for Web browsing, for example, or using different fonts, colours and layout.

But perhaps the most useful advantage of all is the ability to standardize on document formatting - both across an organization and for particular types of document - then change these standards at any time, without having ever to touch the documents themselves. To give but one example, we use it for providing software user documentation - and gain not only the ability to generate output both as Eclipse online help and in printable form, but also to change the style of this documentation at any time. For us, using structured documents is a no-brainer - as I suspect it would be for most organizations, if they only took the time to think about it.

An aim of desktop computing must surely be to reduce the amount of effort people have to invest in order to get things done. To me, it seems that taking away the responsibility for messing about with typefaces, line spacing, page layout, and other issues of document design can only be a significant step in this direction. Why not try it?

Posted by keithhb in Office Applications |Digg This|Add to del.icio.us