tlug: xml

[Matt Gushee <mgushee@example.com>]

Eric Standlee writes:

 > Anyone know anything about XML?  I was fooling around with files made in
 > gnumeric+ and it saves in this format.  It seems like there were plenty
 > of useless formats in the file and it seems much like SGML or HTML.

Useless? Perhaps. Or maybe *you* just don't need them. For a
single-use, print-it-and-throw-away-the-file type of document, yes,
much of the markup is superfluous. But the whole point of SGML/XML* is
to create smart documents -- with high-level, structural descriptions
of the content so they can be easily reformatted, reused, broken up
and put in a database, exchanged across platforms, etc., without any
manual tweaking.

On the other hand, it's possible someone is misusing XML. If your
files contain a lot of low-level formatting stuff (<BOLD></BOLD>,
<FONT SIZE=192pt></FONT>, etc), well, that's considered poor practice in
most cases, and the Gnumeric developers should be slapped silly. ;-)

 > My problem lies in that I would like to learn how to print xml files out
 > to ghostscript, and eventually through the pbm2ppa converter so that my
 > "windows" printer can print it.  I know, you say just use a spreadsheet
 > program that can handle printing, but I want to LEARN!

Mf. Jade can convert them to a printable format, but it's not for the
faint of heart -- unless the Gnumeric stuff just happens to conform to
a DTD** that has ready-made stylesheets. Why don't you send me a copy
of a Gnumeric file, and I might be able to give you a suggestion or
two. But there is probably no simple solution. If you want to learn,
well ... get ready!

Regards,
Matt Gushee
Portland, Maine, USA

* XML is a simplified 'subset' or 'profile' of SGML. The major impetus 
for its development has come from the desire to put more sophisticated 
documents on the Web, but its usefulness is by no means limited to
online documents. Also, any valid XML document is by definition a
valid SGML document, and most SGML-processing software can also handle 
XML.

** Document Type Definition: a specification in SGML/XML syntax that
defines the markup codes for a particular application (e.g. HTML has
tags like <META> and <BLINK> because those tags are defined in the
HTML DTD).
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