Single Source Publishing:
The ability to offer customers business content in multiple formats, such as Web pages, email messages, Word documents, PDF documents, etc., is vital for meeting customers' needs and expectations in today's hyper-competitive Internet economy. However, this task presents a significant challenge since the popular formats in use today are generally not interoperable. XML technologies provide a framework for implementing single source publishing to produce multiple output formats from one source of content, but this still requires the time-consuming development of multiple intricate stylesheets. In addition, many XML-based single source publishing implementations do not address the need to publish content stored in the relational database, which is the prevalent data storage mechanism in today's enterprise.
Only Altova StyleVision 2005 delivers on the promise of single source publishing by simultaneously generating multiple stylesheets based on XML or databases, providing tremendous cost and time savings.
Single Source Content Management:
In the not so distant past, the dominant medium for communicating with customers was the hard copy, printed page. Today, however, single source content management in place of the pace of business is such that printed materials often become outdated as soon as they come off the presses, and advances in communication technology have exploded the number of publishing options available.
Contemporary methods for communicating important business information include multiple media options, such as email, PDF (Portable Document Format) documents, Web pages, word processor documents, and so on. This wide range of formats for representing business content has allowed organizations to customize messages to meet the needs of a variety of consumers - and at the same time it's raised the bar when it comes to consumer expectations. Today's savvy customers expect real-time, up-to-date information available in their preferred format. With the global marketplace online at their fingertips, customers who don't find the information they want from you in a snap will just as quickly look for it from a competitor.
Companies, therefore, face the awesome challenge of producing the same content, such as product descriptions, marketing materials, purchase orders, etc., in multiple formats, while at the same time ensuring accuracy and timeliness. Given that each medium has unique requirements and technical specifications, publishing this content in multiple formats often consumes vast amounts of financial and human resources.
XML technologies offer the ability to implement single source publishing by separating content from style. This inherent ability of XML allows you to publish a single source of content into multiple formats, such as Web pages, printed documents, and so on. However, though XML technologies lay the foundation for single source publishing, only Altova StyleVision 2005 overcomes the significant challenges required to make it a reality.
Multiplicity of Media and Single Source Publishing:
In many companies, the process for tackling publishing in multiple media is based on legacy methods for producing printed materials. However, today the number of steps and people involved has multiplied. Content authors generally write content using their preferred word processing program and send files to Web publishers, graphic designers, etc., for publication. For instance, a common chain of events takes place when a marketing representative needs to add content to the company Web site. He/she writes the new content in a word processing application and sends the file to the Web developer, who then has to code the text in HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), add formatting in the form of a stylesheet, add Web-specific features such as hyperlinks and navigation information, and so on. Because the content from the word processor application is incompatible with Web formatting, the marketing rep and Web developer are doing much of the same work twice.
Next, the marketing rep sends that very same content to the graphic designer, who transforms it to PDF format. Though the same content is being published, PDF formatting requires the addition of headers, footers, page numbers, and other layout considerations.
Depending on the number of formats in which each document needs to be replicated, this process snowballs rapidly.
To further complicate matters, single source publishing this multi-tiered process is repeated each time the original content is updated. Whether an update is required to simply change a word, correct an error, or add new information, each and every occurrence of that information must be tracked down and updated. This becomes quite a daunting task when many versions of each file and different types of file formats have accumulated.
