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Abstract
Though XML has been around for years, only recently have technical writers begun to develop technical content for deliverables using XML. Moving beyond the simple tagging of content for output to multiple display formats, now technical writers are beginning to use XML as a way of meaningfully labeling the various information types in their content. This is a necessary step as delivery technologies change more rapidly and the amount of information to maintain grows. But the use of XML is far from mainstream for most technical writers and the reasons for not crossing this frontier range from inertia to intimidation. Not wanting to be seen as proponents of yet another technology or becoming too intimate with publishing technology, many technical writers have kept their distance from XML.This presentation discusses the challenges of authoring technical content in XML from a content developer’s perspective. It includes the benefits to restructuring the way content is maintained and the issues that must be addressed. While some DTDs exist in the public domain (such as DocBook), the author recommends an approach that avoids seeing the technical content as simply material to be formatted for hard-copy book publishing. With the available tools and a few easily understood concepts, technical writers can quickly become productive with XML. You do not need a team of tools experts or programmers to make this technology work. XML and information types are too important to leave to the programmers and publishers. And the reasons for using XML far outweigh any fear of learning another set of acronyms.
Intended Audience
The intended audience for this presentation includes technical writers, content engineers, or anyone responsible for maintaining technical content or documentation. This is intended for the majority of professionals that have not yet discovered the value of working with XML, something that the author sees as crucial for professionals to stay employable as enterprises move (and share) more information online and into databases.Copyright © 2004 by Bill Albing. All rights reserved.
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