[LINK] XML Saves the World?

[Tom Worthington]

At 7/15/2004 02:05 PM, rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au wrote:
>... simple "save as XML", and I'd send one file ...

Doesn't work like that. You would have to send your document in whatever 
version of XML your publishing system wants.

XML isn't really a file format, so much as a way of defining lots of file 
formats. OOO saves documents in its own format implemented in XML, MS-Word 
saves its documents in another.

Both OOO and MS-Word (the new version at least) have provision for 
converting from their internal XML format to others using an XSLT 
transformation. This conversion can be easy as selecting a "save as" 
option. Someone could write you a transformation to allow Ms-Word or OOO 
documents to be saved in the format your publishing system uses.

But XSLT is a rather bizarre programming language and not something easy to 
use. Newer versions of OOO come with transformations from MS-Word XML and 
to XHTML, neither of which I can get to work. One demonstration 
transformation I wrote converts ATO BAS XML into a readable document 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/2002/atoxml.html>.



Tom Worthington FACS tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd ABN: 17 088 714 309
http://www.tomw.net.au PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617
Visiting Fellow, Computer Science, Australian National University
Publications Director, Australian Computer Society