XML 2010, eMedia Revolution

I attended XML 2010, eMedia Revolution at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in downtown Philadelphia October 13-15. It was observed that attendance was down from previous XML conferences.

Sessions included such XML details as “Everyday DITA” (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) to what is a good wiki editor (CKEditor http://ckeditor.com/). Norm Walsh, who is well regarded in XML standards development, gave an overview of the new developments in DocBook v.5.

Of high interest to those who expect to become involved in digital book (especially ePub) development was the presentation From InDesign to iPad given by Gabriel Powell. Gabriel is an Adobe Certified Trainer and much of his training notes and videos are available from http://www.instantindesign.com/.

His presentation went into fine detail about how best to set up an InDesign template so that all the information is captured when exporting to Digital Editions (ePub) format. The key is that everything must be modified with a style–paragraph of character. Don’t just use bold or italic as an attribute, create a character style that makes the type bold or italic or the change will be lost in your ebook.

There were lots more important details about how NOT to set up an InDesign file, but check out his website for some cool document creation tips.

Jim Link

Business Technology Strategist, MPS North America