Newgen XML prepress workflows June 2009

Consider a conventional publishing workflow

(simplistically) Authoring in Word Editing on screen or on paper Printing and online delivery Composition (DTP or batch) Proofreading on paper or PDF annotation Correction of typeset files

XML can be brought into the workflow at any of these stages

Authoring in Word Editing on screen or on paper Printing and online delivery Composition (DTP or batch) Proofreading on paper or PDF annotation Correction of typeset files Postproduction XML is produced after print files are signed off for press

(Dis)advantages QUALITY SCHEDULE COST Nothing in the existing workflow up to printing needs to change. However, the data integrity between print and XML is less assured than in an XML composition workflow; there is some lag between print delivery and XML delivery; no interim, “ahead-of-print” XML products can be generated; and some advantages of automation in an XML workflow are forgone. In terms of cost, XML-last and XML-first workflows are more or less cost-neutral for typical academic books, but there is a cost advantage to XML-first workflows for high-volume, standardized publishing (directories, looseleafs, journals) and titles that go through multiple editions; highly designed titles that follow an XML-first workflow may prove more expensive to produce if revisions are heavy during composition, but the quality of the final XML is improved and the schedule can be shortened.

Most publishers use a single supplier for postproduction conversion to ensure consistency of approach. Postproduction can take as input printed books, application files, or print PDFs. Printed books are digitized either by scanning and OCR or by keyboarding. Text is extracted from electronic files using proprietary script libraries. In brief, the extracted text is then tagged as XML, parsed against the client’s XML DTD or schema, and read onscreen or on a target device (e.g., Kindle). From a good base DTD, a single XML file can be automatically onward-converted for multiple online and physical devices to maximize the number of delivery channels.

Authoring in Word Editing on screen or on paper Printing and online delivery Composition (still DTP or batch) Proofreading on paper, on PDF, or directly in XML Correction of typeset files XML composition XML is produced after editing, as the input to the composition process

(Dis)advantages QUALITY SCHEDULE COST Nothing in the client-end workflow up to printing needs to change if composition is outsourced, although models are available where clients can work directly in the XML file after initial composition. (The client need not own or use the composition software to make changes directly to the content.) Data integrity between print and XML is assured, and XML quality can be largely discerned from the typeset pages without the need for XML expertise. XML-first composition is a robust production methodology in widespread use in publishing, so clients benefit from existing technology in terms of cost, reliability, and setup time. Print file delivery and XML delivery are simultaneous, and interim, “ahead-of-print” XML products can be generated. Advantages of automation in an XML workflow are realized.

Choosing the right composition software Short books, plain text, lightly illustrated Complex designs, manual page makeup Heavy math School and college texts, automated makeup XML-first workflows Batch pagination InDesign     3B2     XPP   TeX/LaTeX   Quark   Microsoft Word 

In an XML workflow the XML data sit behind the typeset pages. All other deliverables—print files, (X)HTML files, Web PDFs—are created from this single data stream, and corrections at any stage are incorporated only into the XML. Publishers who use an XML-first workflow adopt one of two approaches: either pages are flowed entirely automatically in the typesetting software or some level of manual intervention is allowed to improve the visual appearance. To preserve the integrity of the XML in the latter approach, processing instructions can be inserted into the XML. These are invisible to an XML parser and then can be left in the XML or stripped out automatically at the time of final delivery.

Authoring in Word Editing on screen Printing and online delivery Composition (DTP or batch) Proofreading on paper, on PDF, or directly in XML Correction of typeset files XML copyediting XML is produced before editing; the copyeditor may work directly in XML or on a Word file with underlying XML

(Dis)advantages QUALITY SCHEDULE COST The advantages of the XML composition model are increased: some mechanical aspects of copyediting can be automated (e.g., matching citations with references). However, there is a steep learning curve for existing copyeditors and for authors reviewing edited files if they have to work directly in the XML using, e.g., the Epic or XMetaL editor. This curve is flattened significantly if copyeditors work in Word — or (continue to) edit on hard copy.

If Word is used for copyediting in an XML workflow, copyeditors can use predefined paragraph and character styles to “tag” the document—an approach that most editors are now comfortable with. For composition, the Word file is first exported to WordML (Word’s own, rich XML format) and then transformed to XML that conforms to the client’s DTD using XSLT and XPath technologies. The process is one of translation: XSLT is a bilingual dictionary; when more than one translation is listed for a single word, XPath is the usage definition that allows you to choose one term over another.

Authoring in XML (or Word XML) Editing on screen Printing and online delivery Composition (DTP or batch) Proofreading on paper, on PDF, or directly in XML Correction of typeset files XML authoring XML drives the entire production cycle from manuscript to online/ebooks

(Dis)advantages QUALITY SCHEDULE COST The whole workflow centers on the XML content. Word-based authoring tools can help authors unfamiliar with XML, but the learning curve remains steep, and external authors may create unrealistic technical requirements for the system. A mature system can dramatically decrease time to market. For products that go through multiple editions, total cost of ownership (creation and maintenance) of XML is reduced if this solution is combined with an XML-based content management system. Publishers can manage granular content “chunks” to create custom publications for multiple (print and electronic) distribution channels.

FAQs

What are other publishers doing?

Each of these workflow options is used by one or more of our clients, but recently there has been some convergence:

Professional and education publishers are tending to use XML throughout Academic books and journals publishers are tending to introduce XML at the composition stage

Which DTD should I use?

Some publishers have their own XML DTDs linked to internal content management or online system. But a number of open DTDs are available. The best-known of these include the NLM journal and book DTDs, DocBook, TEI and TEI Lite, and the oebps package.

The good news is that all of these can be incorporated into an XML workflow; the challenge is to strike a balance between

Too little markup, which fails to serve all of the alternative, electronic uses of the content Too much markup, which adds cost, time, and complexity without benefit

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT Mitchell Freiberg Sales Director [email_address] m: +1 954 205 1257 India operations 60/3 L.B. Road, Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai 600041, India U.S. operations Texas: 8500 Shoal Creek Blvd., Building 4, Austin, TX 78757 New York: 200 Executive Blvd., Ossining, NY 10562