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Semantic Markup and Text Resource Linking


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For me, the biggest omission from Publisher at present is support for Linking and Embedding of semantic markup text files. This would allow authored text resources to be handled in the same excellent and flexible way image resources are at present. Authors would be able to round-trip text content between Designer and their preferred text editor software in the same way as artists can round-trip image files at present. Crucially, the files can be either linked or embedded according to workflow requirements.

Doing this well requires the following enhancements:

  1. Support for semantic markup text files formats such as Markdown and SGML. In these files the author marks up passages according to what they mean not how they look (for example 'Heading 1', 'Bullet List', 'Emphasis'). Designer is responsible for converting this to a particular typography to implement the style of the document.
  2. Support for Style Sheets. These are collections of text and paragraph styles which get mapped onto the semantic markup to determine the look of the document. You apply a style sheet to a Text Frame in the same way as you might a filter onto an Picture Frame.
  3. Handle text files as resources using the feature set already implemented for image files. They should be updatable, replaceable, linkable, embeddable, collectable etc.
  4. For 'extra credit' handle visual markup formats (DOCX, PDF, RTF, ODF, XML etc.) in the same way using AI to strip away the visual markup and reinterpret it semantically. Fairly straightforward if styles are used with discipline in that you just overwrite the definition of the styles. Harder if the markup is applied in an ad-hoc manner in that you have to infer semantics.

If Publisher was able to implement something like this it would, in my view, go from good to great and support more professional workflows such as production of serial publications with multiple authors and editors.

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  • 6 months later...

As much as desktop publishing caused the appearance of so many small publishers, the ability of AfPublisher to let authors edit their text and pictures without caring for layout, while the layout artists do their work, and prepare the assembled work for release on the web and in print form, would mean relaunching the world of magazines and newspapers.

Serif could also add network services and specialized professional support to their list of income voices.

Paolo

 

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1 hour ago, PaoloT said:

As much as desktop publishing caused the appearance of so many small publishers, the ability of AfPublisher to let authors edit their text and pictures without caring for layout, while the layout artists do their work, and prepare the assembled work for release on the web and in print form, would mean relaunching the world of magazines and newspapers.

 

Thanks Paolo and Stefano - this suggestion was a very slow burn and I was beginning to think that something fairly obvious to me was a completely outlandish suggestion nobody in the print world would understand! Yet HTML started in the print world as SGML, a semantic markup standard, the semantic aspect got stripped out with structure and presentation merged in early HTML, which then slowly got the point and added it back in in a different form (CSS)! Now the online world has content management and multi-targeted dynamic layout. Time to port that learning back to the print world and unify the two with print, ebook and PDF formats just another automatically generated output format alongside HTML, styled from templates designed by professional designers to a house style. I really cannot understand why Affinity (and other desktop publishing software) gets this so completely for the art workflow and yet cannot carry those ideas over to authoring!

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All these enhancements would be helpful to authors and editors who are able to use Affinity Publisher and a text editor 'with discipline'.  There are plenty of us!  We would not be looking for a replacement for a full-featured text editor, just for the ability to move back and forth between the text editing software and Publisher without a lot of manual work.

If the text is linked instead of embedded and uses styles properly instead of manual formatting, it would enable single source publishing - the same text could be used for multiple documents eg a printed book, marketing materials, ebooks and website content, without creating separate versions for each. Content management systems allow you to do these things but they are complex, cumbersome and expensive.

I'm an editor, and have written, edited and proofread many documents in Word, InDesign, HMTL and content management systems, and converted long documents (eg government annual reports, self-publishing authors' books, and procedure manuals) from one to the other and back again.

Virtually all of my clients use Word, most of them use styles inconsistently if at all, and I routinely replace their manual formatting with proper semantic styles. Often there are multiple authors and multiple revisions. It is essential to be able to import the rtf or docx file and export it again in a form that can be passed back to the client for review and further revisions. I have developed a workflow that involves setting up clean styles in Word and importing to Affinity without having to reformat everything. 

Another reason for being able to export from Publisher to rtf (or docx) is that during the iterative review process, clients don't need to see the design features while they are still in development - you want them to focus on the words, not whether it looks pretty to them. Sending them a PDF isn't appropriate if they need to make further changes.

When working between InDesign and Word, the story editor was invaluable and a great timesaver for an editor or proofreader who just needs to ensure the text was correct. If editors can use the same software as the designers, this is a great advantage to them as well as the client - and saves money. Designers don't necessarily have the same skills and training as editors - or the desire to work with the text - and it can be frustrating and expensive for everyone to have to ask them to make editorial changes. 

Once the document is in Affinity, the editor can make minor changes easily without impacting the design. InDesign is unaffordable to many freelance editors, but Affinity allows them to collaborate with others in the publishing process. 

Many self-publishing authors also want to be able to edit their work directly in Affinity Publisher, and something like InDesign's story editor would make this easier. 

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There are a variety of use cases and work flows, and I'd like to highlight three in particular.

1) The simplest case is when the external text flow is just key strokes (code points).  For a long time, this was how publishers wanted to receive manuscripts from authors, and is still very common for magazines to ingest article content.  The author might insert some typographic notes inline, but the import process takes no notice of them.  The layout person would be entirely responsible for applying any styles called for by such notes.

2) The more capable case is when the external text flow is marked up.  In particular, spans of non-default paragraph and character styles are explicitly tagged.  This is appropriate for repeated export/external-edit/importcycles.  It is also appropriate for ingesting content from a CMS or similar database.   It is also appropriate for drag-and-drop or copy-and-paste from other work processing applications such as Microsoft Word.   There are two variations I'd like to mention.  The first and quite limited variation requires the text flow tags to exactly correspond with styles already defined in Publisher.  The second allows the use of something analogous to an XLST stylesheet (does not need the full complexity, just tag transformation!) to transform between external tags and internal styles on import/export.  Ideally, tags which are not known to the existing import stylesheet would prompt an interactive dialog with the user, similar to the font substitution dialog, where the missing transformations could be added (including the addition of new internal styles).  Even better, there should be support for multiple import/export stylesheets, so that content exchanged with different authors or CMSs can be managed conveniently.

3) If and when Publisher acquires a plug-in architecture, external text flows must include content intended for interpretation by plug-ins.  I.e., if it is possible to use a LaTeX or MathML plugin to write math expressions in a Publisher text flow, then the input text for the plugin must be preserved on export, and external text tagged for the plugin must be passed to the plugin on import.

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There has been a small bit of discussion in other threads about concatenating multiple external texts into a single series of linked text frames, and conversely, splitting one internal text flow into two or more unrelated series of linked text frames.  Managing how external text files map to and from internal text flows can be quite complicated.  One user might want the content of the external files to follow the internal arrangement automagically, while others might insist that Publisher never alter any linked external file.

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  • 2 weeks later...

+1 for the ability of linking to text in an external file (that can thereby be used by several publisher files).

Supernice if markdown/html would be recognized for semantics, and a fantastic bonus if styling of the imported text could be linked to the document text styles (for example with matching html class attributes).

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  • 1 month later...

Bumping this thread, just to add variety in switching from "replacing InDesign with Publisher" to "replacing MacCap Flare with Publisher"!

A background flow of text based on semantic markdown would greatly facilitate the development of any single-sourcing, multiple output features.

Paolo

 

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