Writing documentation and information in one format and publishing it in multiple formats. For example, the source text could be written in a word processor and converted to a variety of different formats such as PDF, HTML and XML. PDF is especially popular for publishers that are printing books. See
PDF,
HTML and
XML.
We Do Single Source Publishing
The production of this encyclopedia by The Computer Language Company (CLC) is an example of single source publishing. The source text files are written and maintained in the XyWrite III Plus format (a rather ancient text editor that most people never heard of!). From the XyWrite source files, a conversion program, written in C, turns the text and XyWrite format codes into a set of XML master files.
From the XML masters, additional conversion programs create six formats: one HTML feed and two types of XML feeds for CLC customers who host the Encyclopedia on their servers; HTML definitions for CLC's own hosting system; proprietary glossary files used for CLC's popular Windows lookup engine, as well as Open eBook files for CLC customers who publish in that format. See
XyWrite and
CLC.