XML presses the publishing business

Adobe Systems Inc. on Monday will join an army of software vendors that are using XML (Extensible Markup Language) to transform the way documents are published.

The company will begin shipping Adobe FrameMaker Version 7.0, the latest release of its software for creating content once and publishing it to a variety of media, a process called multichannel publishing. From a single user interface similar to that of a word processor, Adobe FrameMaker enables users to create content, such as a user manual or sales documentation, and publish it for use in a variety of settings, including the Web, handheld devices and print.

A new feature in the latest version is the ability to create content in XML.

"There's quite a bit of power behind XML," said JoAnne Buckner, senior product manager with Adobe's FrameMaker team, which has built support for XML into the product.

When authoring content in XML, "you are able to store content in a media-neutral format and apply business rules to that content," she said. Those business rules determine how and where content can be used or distributed. When content is created in XML, it can be easily reused in a number of popular formats.

In addition to XML, FrameMaker can output content as an Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format) file, in HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) for display on a Web site, or in a format that can be displayed on an e-book reader or handheld device.

The San Jose, California, graphics software maker is not alone in trying to make publishing easier by helping content creators to put out their work in a variety of formats. Corel Corp. recently acquired SoftQuad, which makes XMetaL, an application that can out put content in some of the same data formats as Adobe's software. A longtime player in the market, Arbortext Inc. makes another competing product, Epic Editor.

Although each company promotes unique features in its software, they all agree on one thing: the importance of XML.

"We're beginning to realize that information is dynamic, and the question becomes, how do you keep it in sync?," said Ray Schiavone, president and chief executive officer of Arbortext.

Among the benefits of Arbortext's Epic Editor software, Schiavone noted that writing content in XML allows a user to make modifications to the text and have those changes automatically reflected in every medium that is published.

"That's where XML is getting broader adoption," he said.

A good example of the power of XML publishing is in the software business, where vendors may write a lengthy user manual for each product and then publish it as a printed book, as a CD-ROM and on the Web. Before XML-based tools were available, each time a new version of software was released, a company would have to go through the daunting task of updating the content in each version of its manual individually, Schiavone said.

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