XML and Epic Editor: Promise vs. Reality

Chuck Petch

Web developers and business software programmers make wide use of XML for document and data storage. Its plain text formatting tags and user-defined stylesheets permit different layouts for the same data, making XML a highly flexible tool. As its use increases, publications departments may face pressure to produce documentation using XML editors such as ArborText’s Epic Editor instead of traditional publishing applications such as FrameMaker. So does it make sense to replace your publishing program with Epic Editor or something similar?

The answer is it depends. Because of recent work with the Epic, I can offer some thoughts about XML and Epic in a publishing environment. I admit to being a newbie with both, so your mileage may vary, but I hope what I’ve learned so far helps you consider all the angles before implementing an XML and Epic publishing system. Let’s take a look at the promise of XML and Epic compared to the reality as I’ve seen it so far.

Promise:

XML editors, such as Epic Editor are very full-featured and can do the same job Word or FrameMaker can do.

Reality:

Many very capable XML editors populate the market. Epic is a particularly full-featured XML editor with
virtually all of the features of FrameMaker. Name the feature and it’s there—styles, templates, automatic tables of contents, automatic indexing, change bars, conditional text, figure insertion by reference and manipulation, and more. Style tags are clearly visible and easily inserted, and can also be turned off so you can look at an on-screen
approximation of your layout. You can replace FrameMaker with Epic and produce mostly the same results…within limits.

I say within limits because Epic is not WYSIWIG (what you see is what you get), so when you manipulate graphics or text within the application, you only see approximately what the output will look like, not an accurate on-screen presentation. Graphics in particular do not look right on screen when scaled by percentage, so you have to print on paper or view a print preview to see if they fit on the page correctly. This reliance on printing to see your output can be both frustrating and time consuming, making Epic much less efficient to use than FrameMaker.

Printing poses a problem too, because the $900 or so that you pay for Epic does not get you the means to print to paper, preview, or PDF. It’s a bit like buying a car with no wheels. If you want to print, you have to shell out several thousand dollars more for a print license. This is nothing less than a scam, and puts Epic out of the price range of most small companies and individual users. Even well-funded corporations may balk at the cost of the print license, and rightly so.

Promise:

XML provides a way of easily converting the same content to many different formats to allow easy document sharing between departments.

Reality:

This is certainly true, but again, within limits. Unfortunately ArborText, the makers of Epic, have made its
XML output non-standard. To use its XML output with another XML editor, you have to edit the raw XML
or implement a conversion program. This tends to lock the purchaser into using Epic exclusively, which is undoubtedly ArborText’s aim. Nevertheless, assuming all departments in the company use Epic, they can indeed share content and more or less instantly convert that content to a different layout by simply applying a different stylesheet within Epic. This makes content truly portable and reusable.

Promise:

XML reduces documentation costs and enhances the ability to manage content.

Reality:

Depending on the circumstances this statement may be pleasantly true or wildly, laughably false. For large companies with significant resources and a lot of content to share between departments, it is undoubtedly true. Once documents are converted to XML and the whole company is producing and sharing XML content, the company may save significantly on writing and reformatting costs. For example, content you write for a manual may be easily reused in a different format in a marketing brochure, a sales document, a web site, and a training presentation.

Beware, however, of the possibly substantial cost in time and effort to convert your existing documents to XML. Additionally, XML templates are not as easily and quickly made as Word or FrameMaker templates. XML is a more complex language than HTML and may require an XML expert to expend many hundreds of hours to customize document type definitions and stylesheets. If you are content to use off-the-shelf templates, you can keep your development costs to a minimum.

Conclusion

So what is a document department to do? Should you make the leap to XML and Epic Editor or not? It really depends on your purpose and the depth of your pockets. If you need to share lots of content with other departments, XML could save you money, and Epic could serve you well as a full-featured XML publishing program. However, beware of the conversion and support costs and the hidden costs to buy all of the Epic Editor components.

For small companies that cannot afford the investment in Epic, a less costly XML editor that has plenty of canned stylesheets and produces standard XML outputs may serve just as well. For others who need to share text only occasionally, it may be cheaper still to skip XML altogether and either do manual reformatting or use translation programs to convert between the applications preferred by different departments. As always, your decision should be driven by your needs, not by enthusiasm for the technology.

Reprinted from The Capital Letter, Sacramento Chapter Newsletter, February 2006