Document Authoring Tool Woes

Hi All,
In the use-case group the decision is to use XML as authoring language.
To be honest: I have no idea what that means as XML (unlike HTML) does AFAIK
not directly support  text formatting.  XML supports anything (or nothing)!  But you must use a
particular DTD/Schema associated interpreter for each task.  My XMLSpy 3.5 does BTW not
look like a great word-processor...

The common objection (inferiority) to use MS-Word that most of us know and have on our
desktops, is IMO a bit premature until UN, OASIS, IETF or whatever has defined this
DTD/Schema that gives us truly interoperable word-processing :-)

Since SUN's Star Office also supports the native Word format I suggest that we standardize
on some dialect (Word 97 preferably).  Regarding the formatting issues I think the best
is that the authors "integrate" text and pictures to get a uniform look.  Not a trivial task,
I know!

Or someone creates a style-sheet + instructions so that the task becomes more manageable.

Publishing can be in both DOC and PDF which seems very common.

Using Word, pictures can be in any format although I personally prefer hi-resolution
GIF or JPG as they are compatible with any word-processor or type-setting system.

An alternative to Word is HTML, which is awkward a looks ugly when printed,
but it feels anyway as a better choice than XML when used as source language.

As word-processing truly is "religion" [I just confessed mine :-)], this is a thing you probably
have to vote on to not get stuck in endless discussions.  We may end up with ASCII!

Anders Rundgren
CTO X-OBI
+46 70 - 627 74 37