xmlauthor An XHTML Authoring System for Academic and Technical Writers

Andrew A. Cashner, [email protected]

April 2024

Features

Basically XHTML

• If you can write a web page you can use this system
• Does not reinvent the wheel

Flexible and convertible

• Avoids the format lock-in of LaTeX or word processors
• Converts to LaTeX, PDF, and HTML by default
• Semantic but not too fussy: You can think about what you mean without having to look everything up in a complex schema like in TEI

Automatic citation and bibliography creation:

• Using a single BibLaTeX database, just type <citation key="author:year" /> and have properly formatted author-date parenthetic citations and automatically generated bibliography in all output formats

Automatic handling of "floats" like figures, tables, examples, diagrams

• Automatic numbering of tables, etc.
• Automatic cross-references for floats:
  • Just type <ref type="table" href="#tab:demo" />

Simple, minimal-computing setup:

• You only need Make and the Saxon XSLT processor
• For PDF output you need a LaTeX installation

License

Copyright © 2024 Andrew A. Cashner.

This software is made available under the MIT License.