Stuart Burnfield said: "The best known SGML DTD for structured documentation is DocBook. I think that's what Tenix uses (Bill?). IBM has its own SGML DTD called IBMIDDoc, which was designed with traditional long paper manuals in mind. DITA is IBM's newish DTD, this time implemented in XML and designed for flexible, topic-based documents and many different output formats. Think of SGML like Papa Bear's chair: too big and hard for most people. HTML is Baby Bear's chair: too small and restrictive. XML is (meant to be) like Mama Bear's chair: just right. You wouldn't necessarily use DITA or DocBook yourself, but once you're comfortable with the concepts in the paper I quoted above, you have a flying head start on whichever XML-based documentation system you do end up with. I work on a set of very old (and old-fashioned) software manuals in IBMIDDoc. If my contract gets extended I should get a chance to rewrite, retag and restructure them using DITA and info typing principles. Should be fun and 'a great little learner' -- fingers crossed." All this is good advice. One correction though, given that Tenix works in the Australian defence environment, we are obliged to=20 deliver our work according to defence or aerospace standards. The standard we have been working to until now is Def Aust 5629A (http://www.defence.gov.au/dps/dpstoc.html), although it is likely we will be doing documentation work for new projects according to the more content oriented AECMA standards (http://www.tpsmg.org/). We have been able to do very smart things with the Def Aust standard, and it looks like we will be able to work even better once new projects begin accepting the AECMA standards. Regards, Bill=20 ************************************************** To post a message to austechwriter, send the message to austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx To subscribe to austechwriter, send a message to austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "subscribe" in the Subject field. To unsubscribe, send a message to austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe" in the Subject field. To search the austechwriter archives, go to www.freelist.org/archives/austechwriter To contact the list administrator, send a message to austechwriter-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx **************************************************