Structured content approaches rely on technologies that allow technical communicators to to use mark-up languages to tag and define characteristics of content. Several different tools are important to this approach, which has become increasingly central to producing technical documentation. Some of those tools include markup languages themselves, standards for information types based on those markup languages, as well as text editors and web authoring programs that enable technical communicators to edit and tag content.
Two important structured authoring markup languages for technical communicators are XML and HTML. XML denotes Extensible Mark-up Language and HTML stands for Hypertext Mark-up Language.
XML: XML is used to describe data. XML allows users to create tags according to their needs. XML does not follow the principle of what you see is what you get.
HTML: HTML is used to define the characteristics of data. It is stand alone and web-based. HTML follows what you see is what you get and is used for presentation of a document.
They both fall in to the broader category of content organization and content structure. There are numerous paid and open-source tools that bring all tasks under one roof enabling the technical writers to build visually-appealing document structure with easy-to-read content.
Some structured authoring tools used by technical writers include:
- oXygen XML Editor
- FrameMaker
- DreamWeaver