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Getting Started with Structure
Because FrameMaker has long been a comprehensive tool for working with large
documents, it was logical to move into this burgeoning field of information handling with
XML, HTML, and other applications. It is a valuable tool for anyone who needs to analyze
information and make decisions based on it. This is needed not only for distribution
within large companies and on the Web, but for a whole spectrum of other destinations
like video and wireless devices.
Single document, multiple uses
Finding a format that can be used for transfer of data between databases of different
vendors has always been difficult. One of the major advantages of XML is that it provides
a backbone for data that can be searched and sorted for accomplishing any number of
objectives.
A standard FrameMaker document is flexible to a degree, but short of that obtained in
one created with Structured FrameMaker 7.0. In standard mode, the data component is
nonexistent because it lacks that backbone of structure.
You can create a standard document, save it in many word-processing formats, as well as
in HTML or Adobe Acrobat PDF. You can print it. But its utility diminishes when the use
of the document is simultaneously important to information technology, engineering,
marketing, public relations, inventory control, technical documentation, and warehouse
distribution–a whole enterprise with many divergent requirements for the same data. If
one person is using the data, there is no problem; when many users need to review data
with different uses in mind, a structure gives consistency.
XML was developed to allow documents to be created once, but distributed to multiple
users in multiple channels. HTML is for Web display. XML is for data. Structured
FrameMaker 7.0 is an enterprise-ready application. It combines the simplicity of word
processing with the power of XML data handling. It is WYSIWYG authoring in style-
tagging mode, a structured environment for creating valid XML.
XML behaves the same no matter what platform or software you are using to output the
data, so each new use of the data is created without time-consuming reconstruction.
Every application understands what the data is, because it is tagged. A Web page uses it
one way, a database in another. An individual does not have to redo a spreadsheet to create
a database, a Web page editor to format a home page, nor an HTML editor to set up
financial data on an Internet site.
L16gs.fm Page 400 Saturday, July 6, 2002 3:51 PM