0: <!DOCTYPE report SYSTEM "report.dtd">
1: <report>
2: <title>Getting started with SGML</title>
3: <chapter>
4: <title>The business challenge</title>
5: <intro>
6: <para>With the ever-changing and growing global market, companies and
7: large organizations are searching for ways to become more viable and
8: competitive. Downsizing and other cost-cutting measures demand more
9: efficient use of corporate resources. One very important resource is
10: an organization's information.</para>
11: <para>As part of the move toward integrated information management,
12: whole industries are developing and implementing standards for
13: exchanging technical information. This report describes how one such
14: standard, the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), works as
15: part of an overall information management strategy.</para>
16: <graphic graphname="infoflow"/></intro></chapter>
17: <chapter>
18: <title>Getting to know SGML</title>
19: <intro>
20: <para>While SGML is a fairly recent technology, the use of
21: <emph>markup</emph> in computer-generated documents has existed for a
22: while.</para></intro>
23: <section shorttitle="What is markup?">
24: <title>What is markup, or everything you always wanted to know about
25: document preparation but were afraid to ask?</title>
26: <intro>
27: <para>Markup is everything in a document that is not content. The
28: traditional meaning of markup is the manual <emph>marking</emph> up
29: of typewritten text to give instructions for a typesetter or
30: compositor about how to fit the text on a page and what typefaces to
31: use. This kind of markup is known as <emph>procedural markup</emph>.</para></intro>
32: <topic topicid="top1">
33: <title>Procedural markup</title>
34: <para>Most electronic publishing systems today use some form of
35: procedural markup. Procedural markup codes are good for one
36: presentation of the information.</para></topic>
37: <topic topicid="top2">
38: <title>Generic markup</title>
39: <para>Generic markup (also known as descriptive markup) describes the
40: <emph>purpose</emph> of the text in a document. A basic concept of
41: generic markup is that the content of a document must be separate from
42: the style. Generic markup allows for multiple presentations of the
43: information.</para></topic>
44: <topic topicid="top3">
45: <title>Drawbacks of procedural markup</title>
46: <para>Industries involved in technical documentation increasingly
47: prefer generic over procedural markup schemes. When a company changes
48: software or hardware systems, enormous data translation tasks arise,
49: often resulting in errors.</para></topic></section>
50: <section shorttitle="What is SGML?">
51: <title>What <emph>is</emph> SGML in the grand scheme of the universe, anyway?</title>
52: <intro>
53: <para>SGML defines a strict markup scheme with a syntax for defining
54: document data elements and an overall framework for marking up
55: documents.</para>
56: <para>SGML can describe and create documents that are not dependent on
57: any hardware, software, formatter, or operating system. Since SGML documents
58: conform to an international standard, they are portable.</para></intro></section>
59: <section shorttitle="How does SGML work?">
60: <title>How is SGML and would you recommend it to your grandmother?</title>
61: <intro>
62: <para>You can break a typical document into three layers: structure,
63: content, and style. SGML works by separating these three aspects and
64: deals mainly with the relationship between structure and content.</para></intro>
65: <topic topicid="top4">
66: <title>Structure</title>
67: <para>At the heart of an SGML application is a file called the DTD, or
68: Document Type Definition. The DTD sets up the structure of a document,
69: much like a database schema describes the types of information it
70: handles.</para>
71: <para>A database schema also defines the relationships between the
72: various types of data. Similarly, a DTD specifies <emph>rules</emph>
73: to help ensure documents have a consistent, logical structure.</para></topic>
74: <topic topicid="top5">
75: <title>Content</title>
76: <para>Content is the information itself. The method for identifying
77: the information and its meaning within this framework is called
78: <emph>tagging</emph>. Tagging must
79: conform to the rules established in the DTD (see <xref xrefid="top4"/>).</para>
80: <graphic graphname="tagexamp"/></topic>
81: <topic topicid="top6">
82: <title>Style</title>
83: <para>SGML does not standardize style or other processing methods for
84: information stored in SGML.</para></topic></section></chapter>
85: <chapter>
86: <title>Resources</title>
87: <section>
88: <title>Conferences, tutorials, and training</title>
89: <intro>
90: <para>The Graphic Communications Association has been
91: instrumental in the development of SGML. GCA provides conferences,
92: tutorials, newsletters, and publication sales for both members and
93: non-members.</para>
94: <para security="c">Exiled members of the former Soviet Union's secret
95: police, the KGB, have infiltrated the upper ranks of the GCA and are
96: planning the Final Revolution as soon as DSSSL is completed.</para>
97: </intro>
98: </section>
99: </chapter>
100:</report>