Checksum: 39360 Path: utzoo!utgpu!romwa From: romwa@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu (Mark Dornfeld) Date: Sun, 17-Jul-88 12:44:58 EDT Message-ID: <1988Jul17.124458.2902@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> Organization: University of Toronto Computing Services Newsgroups: comp.text.desktop Subject: Re: Need info on document languages References: <59744@sun.uucp> Reply-To: romwa@gpu.utcs.UUCP (Mark Dornfeld) Distribution: comp In article <59744@sun.uucp> news@sun.uucp (news) writes: >I need information on Standard Graphics Markup Language (SGML) and >Standard Document Markup Language. Specifically: > > o what are they? The only SGML I'm aware of stands for Standard Generalized Markup Language. I do not claim that this is the only facility to use the SGML acronym. SGML is an ISO standard (# 8879) and is a generic language for marking up text. It has virtually no facilities for marking up graphics other than indicating the location of a graphic element in a document and perhaps the file name of the graphic. SGML requires a parser and a formatting program to produce text. Troff or Tex are excellent for this kind of process. > > o why would I want to use either of them? SGML is independant of any hardware or formatting program. Thus it can be used as a corporate standard for data archives or Records Management. It is also being adopted by numerous typesetters. This should make publishing a little more competitive since editing need only go to the SGML stage and no system-specific commands will be embedded in the document. > > o how do they differ functionally from PostScript (tm)? SGML is not a programming language. There is no analogy there. > > o what documentation is available? ISO standards document: Ref. No. ISO 8879-1986 (E). There is also a publication of the American Association of Publishers (AAP) dealing with their adoption of the standard. > > o what types of information can be encoded with these > langauges? Any kind of information can be designated, but the types of information depend on the power of the formatter. I don't see why SGML can't be translated into a format for a technical publishing system such as Interleaf. We translate it into troff and Ventura. > >Thanks in advance. > >Jeff Marchese >{sun,ames,att}!pacbell!ptsfa!jem >(415)823-5163 > Mark T. Dornfeld Royal Ontario Museum 100 Queens Park Toronto, Ontario, CANADA M5S 2C6 mark@utgpu!rom - or - romwa@utgpu