What Does XML Offer You?
What is XML?
XML is short for Extensible Markup Language. It gives your data more flexibility because you can identify the component parts in a more accurate and adaptable way than other markup languages.
It is flexible (or extensible) because you define the markup (i.e. the styles or tags) in it yourself. HTML, in contrast, is a fixed format language, because it has a finite number of predetermined tags.
So what does XML do?
When XML arrives at its destination, whether that be an ebook, a pdf, a web file or the printers, it is decoded with a DTD or schema. This DTD or schema provides the translation and styling for the document, ensuring that it displays as you intended, whatever format it's in.
This means that material stored in XML format can be outputted as a book, an ebook, a CD-ROM and so on but only be stored as a single source file. This saves time in the production process and makes editing across multiple formats quicker, easier and less error-prone.
An end-to-end XML system provides the means to manage and automate the entire publishing workflow: authoring, editing, designing and producing, publishing, revising and version tracking.