Essential Tools Of An Xml Workflow2003comp

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What You Need To Know To Get Started Essential Tools of an XML Workflow

description

A presentation for publishers and service providers looking for XML solutions in book publishing

Transcript of Essential Tools Of An Xml Workflow2003comp

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What You Need To Know To Get Started

Essential Tools of an XML Workflow

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Topics We’ll CoverSteps before implementationWorkflow throughout the organizationCommon tools of a publishing workflowTagging – what it is and how to do itXML Functions – the acronyms

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Steps Before Implementation

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Where Are You?Existing IT infrastructure

StrengthsWeaknesses

Company’s appetite for changeCorporate approach to purchasingScalabilityOutput

What are you going to be producing?How much?

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Some questions to askIs our database of products and components complete?Do we have any issues with versioning?How effective are we at meeting internal or external

deadlines?Do we face any issues related to content quality?How effective are we when it comes to retrieving book

content files?Who holds the PDFs and production files, and is this

working well?How often and how effectively do we use content to

market or sell titles?How effectively can we publish in new or non-standard

formats?

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Workflow Throughout the Organization

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Sample XML Workflow

Author

Acquiring Editor Developmental Editor

Production/Design

Marketing Subrights

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AuthorsMost currently use WordMost publishers have author guidelinesWord has XML functionality – incorporate this into the

guidelines or revise guidelines to include XML editorSupply a list of keywords for the bookSupply a list of keywords for each chapterWork with editor to tag and “chunk”

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Acquiring EditorsDecide whether the book should exist just as a print

product, or can be repurposed into other productsEbooks, chapters, iterative publications (O’Reilly’s

Rough Cuts), excerpts

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Developmental EditorsTagging content for meaning/context (work with

author and copy editor)Confirming best use of content for acquiring editor’s

additional productsEnforcing author guidelinesProduct management of title

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ProductionXML workflow is very concreteTagging for format – chapter head, front matter, etc.Apply a pre-defined stylesheet and transformWork with compositor and render the different

products

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MarketingTarget specific audiences for the content (based on

the context tags)Work with acquiring and developmental editors to

create new productsWork with production to design new packagesSEO/SEM on individual books so that they come up in

search results (Google)

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SubrightsRights information stored with the content, not in

separate filesYou know by looking at the XML for any document

which rights you haveNo more digging through files or contacting the

agent/author

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What’s In Your Toolbox?

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Common Tools of Publishing WorkflowWord processing (authors and editors)Design (stylesheets, transforms)ERP systemsTitle managementDAMConversionDAD

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Word ProcessingMS Word 2007

Has XML export functionality Most commonly used word processor/people are used to itNot writing in native XML means exports are inconsistent due

to conversionOpen Office – XXE

Native XML word processorLearning curve on interfaceRequires you to know your doc’s structure before writing its

contentEliminates conversion issues – docs are tagged appropriately

at the outset

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DesignAdobe InDesign

Create or import tag taxonomy in InDesignUse those tags to distinguish various attributes or

elements in the docEdit XML structure within InDesignExport an XML file

QuarkSimilar functionality to InDesignLess used in book publishing than InDesign

Open Source optionsNot a lot out there just now for production/design use

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Third-Party SystemsERP – finance, inventoryTitle Management – production workflows,

budgeting, marketingDAM – digital asset managementDAD – digital asset distribution

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What it is and How to do it

Tagging

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Tag: You’re ItFormatting tags

Chapter headsSubtitlesSection heads

Context tags“This is a recipe”“This is about John Adams”Similar to indexing

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Who Tags What WhenAuthors – contextual keywordsEditors – contextual keywords, structural elementsProduction/Design – structural elementsMarketing – SEO keywords, marketing termsSubrights – rights metadata and tags

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How to TagCarefully

No standard tagging interface exists yet – must do in native XML (can be outsourced with lists)

No standard contextual tagging taxonomy (apart from BISAC categories) exists yet

No industry standard contextual taxonomy exists for chunk-level tagging

ConsensuallyTalk with other pubs about what they are doingNo one publisher will have the single solutionIndustry standards make books sale-able – without them,

pubs have to rely on viral salesBook Industry Study Group will have to get involved

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The acronyms and gibberish

Alphabet Soup

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XML FunctionsXPATHXQUERYXSLTXSL-FOSchematron

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XPATHQuery language that selects certain nodes or tags

from an XML documentEx: if a user wants to display only the chapter

elements in a document, the XPath query goes through the document and selects only the chapter elements for display, leaving the rest of the document alone.

A way of navigating through an XML document and filtering what is not relevant at that particular time.

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XQueryA query language for collections of XML documents in

a repository (as opposed to querying a single document)

Uses XPath syntax, as well as some SQL-type syntax to supplement

Crawls through multiple documents and selects particular attributes for display – useful for combining aspects of documents together to form new documents

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XSLTExtensible Stylesheet Language TransformationsTranslates an XML document into a human-readable

document (or another XML document). Used as a conversion tool between different XML

schemasAlso a way of converting an XML document into an

HTML or plain-text documentUses XPath to identify certain tags and process them a

specific way.

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XSL-FOA stylesheet language for formatting objectsLike XSLT and XPath, it is a component of XSL –

Extensible Stylesheet LanguageIs most often used to generate PDFs, which are then

used to print documents onto paperWas designed to format printed, paged media, as

opposed to screen-based reflowable media

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SchematronA validation language that uses XPath to describe

patterns in an XML documentSupplements DTDs and XML schemas, and ferrets out

errors in XML filesSchematron rules can be converted into style sheets,

making the construction of XSLs much more automated

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Useful LinksTOC/StartWithXML – http://toc.oreilly.com/startwithxml

Book Industry Study Group – http://www.bisg.org

Free newsletter, “The Big Picture” – http://www.ljndawson.com/The_Big_Picture/Newsletter_Subscription/

Email me w/questions – [email protected]