The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is an open, general-purpose specification for creating markup languages. Its primary purpose is to help information systems share structured data, particularly via the Internet, and it is used both to encode documents and to serialize data. It is used in a wide variety of technical communication document formats, including Microsoft Word, OpenOffice, XHTML, DITA, DocBook, and RSS, among others.
#26179
DITA: What You Need To know about the Darwin Information Typing Architecture 
The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is a hot topic among those who author, edit, deliver and manage content. But adopting a standard architecture is an important decision that requires up front research and knowledge of the pitfalls. Find out if DITA is right for your organization. Read this whitepaper to learn more (PDF).
Manning, Steve. Rockley Group, The (2005). Articles>Information Design>Metadata>XML
#29401
A gathering place for information about DITA.
#27039
Dither Scatterplots with XSLT and SVG
Use XSLT and SVG to offset points in X-Y scatterplots so they do not plot on top of each other.
O'Reilly and Associates (2005). Articles>Graphic Design>XML>SVG
#18546
The DocBook document type definition (DTD) was developed during the 1990s to provide an application independent method for creating computer documentation. Versions of the DocBook DTD have been created for both SGML and XML. You can create an embedded index in DocBook using index elements.
Brown, Fred. Allegro Time! (2001). Articles>Indexing>XML>DocBook
#26372
DocBook provides a system for writing structured documents using SGML or XML. It is particularly well-suited to books and papers about computer hardware and software, though it is by no means limited to them.
#30753
A DocBook Basics and References
DocBook is an easy-to-understand and widely used DTD. Dozens of organizations use DocBook for millions of pages of documentation, in various print and online formats, worldwide.
Walsh, Norman. dpawson.co.uk (2004). Books>Information Design>XML>DocBook
#26373
This howto attempts to clear the fog and mystery surrounding the DocBook markup system and the tools that go with it. It is aimed at authors of technical documentation for open-source projects hosted on Linux, but should be useful for people composing other kinds on other Unixes as well.
Raymond, Eric S. tldp.org. Articles>Documentation>XML>DocBook
#31161
Having new DocBook standards in place may do little to push adoption. An important factor in driving user adoption is the availability of software that implements the standard. It would be interesting to see whether big software companies would jump on the bandwagon...Unless the open-source community comes to the rescue!
Talbot, Fabrice. LiveTechDocs (2008). Articles>Documentation>XML>DocBook
#25443
DocBook is officially available as a [WWW] Document Type Definition (DTD) for both XML and SGML. It is unofficially available in other forms as well.
Docbook.org (2003). Resources>Documentation>XML>DocBook
#26191
This book is designed to be the clear, concise, normative reference to the DocBook DTD. This book is the official documentation for the DocBook DTD.
Walsh, Norman and Leonard Muellner. Docbook.org (2003). Books>Documentation>XML>DocBook
#10423
Document (re)Presentation: Object-orientation, Visual Language, and XML 
This article demonstrates how the combination of object-orientation and Horn's notions of visual language morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics may be used to analyze and describe the mapping of marked-up XML files onto user documents. The article also raises the question of whether—or to what extent—the coupling of object-orientation and visual language might be exploited more directly for design purposes in a document production paradigm based on XML.
Johnsen, Lars. Technical Communication Online (2001). Design>Content Management>XML>Metadata
#21657
The issue of documenting schemas—or any machine readable language—goes beyond simple additions of comments. Thereal challengeistocreateschemasthat arereadablebothdirectlybylookingat their sourcecodeandbydocumentation extraction tools.
van der Vlist, Eric. O'Reilly and Associates (2001). Articles>Information Design>XML>Documentation
#29079
Does Being Technical Matter? XML, Single Source, and Technical Communication
XML is a recent Web design language that will enable technical communicators to produce documentation that can reuse information and present it across multiple types of media for diverse audiences. However, little is understood about how XML will impact technical communication in terms of theory, academic research, and pedagogy. In this article, I argue that XML requires more interdisciplinary approaches toward the teaching and research of technical communication, particularly with respect to the integration of technical and rhetorical knowledge.
Sapienza, Filipp. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2002). Articles>Technology>Single Sourcing>XML
#31756
Does XML Suck? Or: Why XML is Technologically Terrible, but You Have to Use It Anyway 
XML purports to be a simple, vendor-neutral textual external representation for hierarchically-structured data. But...
Crane, Aaron. XML Sucks (2002). Presentations>Information Design>XML
#23106
An introduction on using XML for web development, tools for editing XML, and how to use CSS or XSL to control the presentation and processing of XML.
Sall, Ken. WDVL (1999). Design>Web Design>XML
#27716
CSS should not be used to present homemade XML as web pages. You end up with nothing but style. Neither man nor machine can understand the structure of your document. CSS should only be used for widely supported XML applications like XHTML.
Tverskov, Jesper. Smack the Mouse (2004). Design>Web Design>CSS>XML
#21249
Dublin Core Conference Summary 2003
What is Dublin Core? And why would you need a whole conference about it? The end of September and beginning of October brought representatives from various countries around the world to a sunny and warm Seattle, Washington, host of the 2003 Dublin Core Conference.
Gonzales-Chan, Madonnalisa and Sarah Rice. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Articles>Information Design>XML>Metadata
#20736
Dublin Core Corporate Circles of Interest
The 2002 Dublin Core annual conference and workshop marked the beginning of a new effort by the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) to involve members of the corporate world in the evolution and application of the Dublin Core standard. The first meetings of two DCMI Circles of Interest were held on Monday, October 14, 2002, followed the next day by a panel session with several members of the Circles presenting their initial observations and conclusions to the wider conference.
Crandall, Mike. Montague Institute Review (2002). Articles>Information Design>XML>Metadata
#30232
Dynamic Content Delivery using DITA
This whitepaper defines a new publishing paradigm, which we will call dynamic content delivery. Dynamic delivery changes the rules, putting the reader in charge of what content is important and how it should be packaged. It transforms publishing to an audience of many to publishing to an audience of one.
Severson, Eric. Flatirons Solutions (2007). Articles>Content Management>XML>DITA
#29416
Conveying the emotional tone of a Web page has, up until now, been impossible with HTML, and the XML standard fails to address this issue. As an interim solution, developers have proposed several new tags to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Geoff-Hart.com (1998). Humor>Computing>XML>Emotions
#18712
Topic maps are a standard for storing metadata (similar to thesauri, or RDF). They can be used to generate navigation for a website, and lots of other metadata tasks. Topic maps are a new standard (since + 2000) and are slowly starting to be discovered.
Easytopicmaps.com (2003). Resources>Information Design>XML>Metadata
#22749
The ebXML Messaging Service specification (ebMS) extends the SOAP specification to provide the security and reliability features required by many production enterprise and e-business applications.
van der Eijk, Pim. XML.com (2003). Articles>Publishing>XML>SOAP
#27035
Edit XML Documents with Emacs and nXML
The nXML mode for GNU Emacs provides a powerful environment for creating valid XML documents.
O'Reilly and Associates (2005). Articles>Information Design>XML
#26935
This will be the story of my life from the time my boss came to me and said, 'Hey, maybe we could do that Knowledge Base in XML. I hear good things about that XML,' to the time that I figured out everything I needed to know and deployed a fully functional XML knowledge base to the world.
Robotti, Anne. KeyContent.org (2006). Articles>Information Design>XML
#31758
Enabling Information Sharing Integrity
Most companies accept the rapid obsolescence of their documents as an unavoidable cost of doing business. Its not. When dynamic documents replace static documents, users can bring together disparate, distributed data and content and combine it in a single document that is always accurate and up-to-date.
Sorofman, Jake. Content Wrangler, The (2008). Articles>Content Management>XML>Collaboration
