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The Future of the Document

The Future of the Document. Paper is OUT Trees are IN UVic Humanities Computing and Media Centre. The traditional document:. Authored once Static Single presentation medium Cockups embarrassingly persistent Terrible waste of resources. The modern document. Centrally stored

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The Future of the Document

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  1. The Future of the Document Paper is OUT Trees are IN UVic Humanities Computing and Media Centre

  2. The traditional document: • Authored once • Static • Single presentation medium • Cockups embarrassingly persistent • Terrible waste of resources

  3. The modern document • Centrally stored • Easily updated • Includes meta-data • Dynamic display • Often collaborative • Machine readable • Example: a Curriculum Vitae

  4. The meta-data • Dublin Core elements include: • Title, Subject, Description • Creator(s), Contributor(s), Publisher(s) • Type, Format, Language, Source • Identifier(s) (e.g. ISBN, URI, etc.) • Rights

  5. Content is marked up semantically, not visually. For example: Traditional HTML or word-processor version: "...the <bold>important</bold> thing..." Semantic version: "...the <emphasized>important</emphasized> thing..." Or: The US "election" => The US <ironic>election</ironic>

  6. Content is structured in tree format • Trees are easily parsed, read and rendered • Trees are easily searched and indexed • Trees are easily condensed, combined, restructured, or repurposed

  7. How to do this: XML • XML is eXtensible Markup Language • It has <keyword>tags</keyword> like HTML • You can create your own tags • Example: an Old English text

  8. How do I create an XML document? • Type it in a text editor • Use WordPerfect 9+ • Use a dedicated tool such as XMetaL Bear in mind, though, that this is both intellectually and mechanically complex. It's hard (but it's worth it).

  9. What can I do with my XML document? • Use stylesheets to display it • Use a script language to • transform it • harvest from it • search it • render it for your publisher • Store it in an online database

  10. If you're starting a project... • ...DON'T just make a word-processor document • ...DO think about using XML • ...DO come and talk to us Make your document as sophisticated and durable as the ideas inside it.

  11. A final note on characters • We used to have 256 characters • We used to have to • handle special characters using special fonts • distribute our special fonts • embed our special fonts • rely on our special fonts

  12. Now we have Unicode • 65,000 characters • Every major language, all in one font • Never worry about fonts again • Unicode-capable: • Office 2000 • Windows 2000 • Mac OS X • Internet Explorer 5 and Netscape 6 • Managing the transition

  13. Website for this presentation: • http://web.uvic.ca/hrd/futuredoc/

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