February Meeting Recap:  XML

by Diane Russell, Student Liaison WLU

February 10th's general meeting featured speaker Peter Vogel, who arrived from his home in Goderich to show us how XML (Extensible Markup Language) functionality can benefit the technical communicator. Peter is a programmer who evolved into a technical writer; he also teaches for Learning Tree International and is one of the consultants working with Microsoft on the XML component of Office 2003. He is a self-professed "computer geek" who kept his presentation entertaining (as well as informative) with numerous references to the habits and attire of "geeks" (think propeller hats)

XML is best thought of as an editing tool or template. An XML document is text-based, and can be converted into any document which is in text format. Best of all, if a Word document is created and saved as XML, it can be sent anywhere a text document can be sent AND any platform (IBM, Linux, or Windows) will be compatible.

Peter used a slide presentation to illustrate using Word to create and save XML documents. He introduced DocBook specification and touched upon the features of Word processing ML. Following the presentation, Peter was kind enough to stay for a question-and-answer period.

A copy of Peter's actual notes will be forwarded to me shortly. Anyone who requires more detail about the presentation is invited to contact me.