In message <11572AF6DBF0D211BA4F0008C73348ED01DC0130@NTEXCH2>, John Wood
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>This is very interesting. We could easily ask for a different format, but
>we do want to preserve the format of the document, and we do want a format
>that can be readily used by contractors. How would we / contractors save
>documents in SGML? It's not a format I'm familiar with at all.
I would suggest XML is a more practicable choice than SGML: it is
simpler, and there is a large and increasing range of software that
understands it. From the "100 years from now" point of view it is no
worse than SGML, since it is a subset of 'full' SGML.
A more significant issue to consider is whether you are trying to
preserve the format, or the content, of documents. Part of the XML
philosophy is that you separate content from presentation. If you see
the precise layout of a report as something it is important to preserve,
then an XML version of the document would need to be accompanied by a
'style sheet' which said how it is to be laid out on the page/screen.
It could be argued that an XML document plus an XSL FO ("Formatting
Objects") style sheet gives you the best of both worlds. The XML
document gives you access to the underlying information in the report in
a machine-processible format, while the XSL FO style sheet can be used
to generate a PDF, PostScript or HTML version of the article for
printing or on-screen browsing.
Richard Light.
Richard Light
SGML/XML and Museum Information Consultancy
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