The author presents an overview of the capabilities and entry points for data-driven publishing. Subjects include template-based authoring, XML authoring and publishing, database publishing and content management solutions.

The author evaluates three commercial software packages for authoring XML documents: ArbortText Epic, Adobe FrameMaker 7, and SoftQuad XMetaL. The article notes particular feature requirements needed by authors who are creating XML documents.

The author reviews the W3C XML Schema Recommendation of May, 2002, with particular attention to the needs of XML publishers.

An informal overview of currently-available XML editors. The author makes several observations:

XML editors fall into two general categories: document-centric and data-centric.

Data-centric editors (i.e., XML Spy) are woefully inadequate for human users who wish to create document-oriented content.

There is a dearth of document-centric editors on the market.

Many editors in both categories are "missing" important XML-related functionality. For example, Softquad's XMetaL does not support namespaces; Tibco's XML Instance will not validate an XML document against a DTD.

At least for now, one should consider other options (other than native XML editors) for getting document-oriented XML content from human authors.

The author evaluates several currently available XML authoring tools and speculates on the future of XML authoring tools and XML-based publishing.

By mapping Microsoft® Word styles and Adobe® FrameMaker paragraph formats to XML elements, you can create XML documents that are sufficient to drive many XML document-based applications.

Adobe has been criticized for the weakness of XML support in FrameMaker and FrameMaker+SGML version 6.0. The author argues:

Adobe's level of XML support in FrameMaker and FrameMaker+SGML (including lack of XML import) is justified, given that several key XML-related specifications are not yet finalized.

FrameMaker and FrameMaker+SGML support XML better than nearly any other professional print publishing tool available today.

FrameMaker and/or FrameMaker+SGML can today serve as the basis of an XML-based publishing system.

XML is about separating content from format. How do you specify the format of an XML document? Use a style sheet. The author presents the two types of XML style sheets (CSS and XSLT), and discusses the strengths, applications, and limitations of each.

This talk discusses the capabilities of the XML transformation language, XSLT, for publishing XML documents to the Web.

The author presented this talk in conjunction with Pete Beazley of ClearlyOnline, Inc. View Beazley's portion, Hyperpublishing with XML, Part II: XPath, XLink, XPointer.

This is a case study of a single-source SGML-based publishing system that implemented by the author while a staff member at Clairvoyance Corporation (formerly CLARITECH Corporation), Pittsburgh, PA. The author notes that he would approach the project differently today (such as using an off-the-shelf parser, as opposed to writing one). Several aspects of this paper are still valid, including the difficulty and importance of choosing meaningful, intuitive element names to represent different audience types.