Comments on: Recently Read http://www.onemanwrites.co.uk/2008/05/23/recently-read-22/ musings on technical communications Fri, 21 Nov 2008 02:59:16 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: Sarah O'Keefe http://www.onemanwrites.co.uk/2008/05/23/recently-read-22/#comment-3505 Sarah O'Keefe Fri, 23 May 2008 17:51:41 +0000 http://www.onemanwrites.co.uk/?p=138#comment-3505 > Perhaps more of us are closer to structured authoring than > we think? I mean, we all use templates and predefined > formats, don’t we? It depends on how you define structured authoring. I define it as "authoring with templates that are enforced by the software." With Word, you always have the option of ignoring the template, and you'll get away with it unless an editor (a HUMAN) checks your file. With structure/XML, if your file doesn't validate against the structure, you can't ignore it. Sarah PS Glad you enjoyed the Quark post, which took a LONG time to put together. > Perhaps more of us are closer to structured authoring than
> we think? I mean, we all use templates and predefined
> formats, don’t we?

It depends on how you define structured authoring. I define it as “authoring with templates that are enforced by the software.” With Word, you always have the option of ignoring the template, and you’ll get away with it unless an editor (a HUMAN) checks your file. With structure/XML, if your file doesn’t validate against the structure, you can’t ignore it.

Sarah

PS Glad you enjoyed the Quark post, which took a LONG time to put together.

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