If you need an introduction to the features of and background to XML (or its forbear, SGML), this is the course for you. Among academic and professional journal and book publishers in particular, XML is the method of choice for coding and preparing content for electronic publishing and eCommerce.

This course is for those who have to work with the production of electronic content for a range of applications. It requires a good level of computer skills and some awareness of document structuring. This is a technical course and not a strategic overview. During it, you will find out:

• the basic principles of mark-up languages
• the roles XML can play in publishing
• what it is like to work with XML data.

You will also get the chance for some hands-on exercises in structuring content and marking-up and working with simple documents in XML. You will come away with a good overall knowledge of XML and a degree of confidence in working with it.

Note: the course is an updated version of XML in Publishing: An Introduction.

Programme

• What is mark-up? An initial encounter with XML
• Concepts of document structure
• Practical: document analysis
• A comparison of SGML and XML
• The structured document
• Practical: marking-up a simple XHTML document
• The roles of XML in publishing
• Tools and suppliers that publishers use
• Practical: coding an NLM journal article header in XML
• The XML family: completing the picture
• Focusing on XSLT
• Practical: transforming an XML journal article header

Who will benefit from this course?
Production and editorial staff who are responsible for managing the production of electronic content.

Your tutors
Francis Cave has more than 20 years' experience of the use of markup languages in publishing. A former publishing technology consultant at Pira International, he has presented courses on SGML and XML for PTC for almost 10 years. Francis now divides his time between the development of XML-based e-commerce standards and advising publishers on how to make the most of their uses of XML. He provides technical support to Book Industry Communication and EDItEUR on the development of the ONIX and EDItX families of XML-based standards for communication in the book and serials supply chains. He is chairman of BSI Technical Committee IST/41 and of XML UK, a not-for-profit organisation that promotes the use of XML.

Alex Brown first became interested in structured markup when analysing literary texts for his doctorate in the 1980s, after which he worked as a developer on cross-platform multimedia publishing projects. In 1997 Alex was one of the founding directors of Griffin Brown Digital Publishing Ltd, a company providing XML-based services and products. He is responsible for leading the company's XML consulting and implementation, and his work includes advising clients on XML/IT strategy and practice, mentoring clients' staff, writing DTDs and Schemas, and designing and developing XML software systems. In 2002, Alex joined the BSI Technical Committee IST/41, where he contributes to ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34 in its formation of the DSDL ISO standard, among other things. Alex writes and speaks regularly on structured markup technologies and their application to information management.

Note that most of our open courses can also be run as in company events.

Send details of this course to a colleague.

Dates: 10 July/18 September 2008

Price: £349+VAT (a number of discounts are available).

Venue: The Publishing Training Centre in Wandsworth, London (see a map and a list of local hotels).

Make a provisional booking on Working with XML