DMR OpenText, Open Standards, Separating content and structure, Legal and technical publishing
OpenText®
OpenText is the brand used by DMR Limited for its concept of textual data and information management by adherence to Open Standards.
Over many years, DMR have recognised and maintained a distinction between semantic content and the syntactic structures necessary to maintain that content.
OpenText® embodies those ideals.
DMR Limited
DMR has been a software and information company since 1969. The company has changed as the market for information services has changed.
OpenText® is a DMR initiative. DMR
SGML
Document mark-up goes back to the origins of print and the pre-press proof-reader. SGML is a metalanguage within which mark-up languages can be formally defined.
Today, sub-sets of SGML pervade all web and online publishing. The ability to deliver content in a device independent manner relies upon the accuracy and foresight with which the content has been coded.
Separating content from display
Most of us accept that content should be separated from the mode of display or device-specific rendering. Unfortunately, it is often quicker and easier to take a short cut and merge the two, usually intending to tidy it up later.
Part of DMR's OpenText® culture has been the strict adherence to content separation rules. This has made life easier, both within DMR and for the DMR clients. Data structures have been maintained; compromises reduced; and re-usability enhanced.
OpenText® and DMR Open Standards
DMR is committed to Open Standards and established its OpenText® brand as a valedictory label under which to guarantee transparency and commercial portability for its clients. DMR has also sought to promote OpenText as a concept to encourage other companies to use and share common standards for the management of textual information.
DMR's text processing software, built on standards including SGML and the Document Style, Semantics and Specification Language (DSSSL), has been fundamental to the success of DMR over the many years.
Within the DMR Group of companies, open standards are a mindset that have influenced all aspects of our work.
Legal and Technical Publishing
DMR have used their OpenText® standards in online publishing applications for technical and legal texts where maintaining complex document structure is an important part of the publishing process.
DMR information management services are akin to those of an 'information factory'. Data, received in a variety of publishing formats, is automatically parsed, processed and added to a homogeneous database for extraction and delivery. DMR fragment management software, combined with DMR's powerful cross-reference and indexing functionality, enables the re-use and re-purposing data for publication.
Strict adherence to standards has enabled us to manage multi-source information without the artificial limitations imposed by proprietary software.
Legal and technical publishing; searching and presentation involves challenges that are not initially apparent. The DMR OpenText approach has helped us manage these idiosyncrasies.
Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT)
As part of the DMR OpenText® data management process, DMR have developed XML-based language tools for the transformation of XML documents.
The DMR approach has been to create XSLT languages through the use text-based pattern matching tools such as Awk. By use of these tools, and by drawing upon the ideas and concepts of DSSSL, DMR have produced powerful solutions whilst maintaining complete flexibility.
Credit to James Clark
In following the DMR OpenText® ambitions, we owe no small measure of thanks to the work of James Clark. London born, Oxford educated, James Clark was the author of the GNU groff typesetting package, and a leading contributor to XML.
For DMR, it was James Clark's work with Jade, DSSSL and an open-source SGML parser that enabled us to use elegant structures in a simple manner.
Validity and correctness
In developing the DMR OpenText® solutions we have striven to find ways of managing data such that it is both parsable and semantically consistent.
Concepts such as 'well-formed documents' that conform to syntax rules form one element of this process. A second element is that of 'validity' where the document also conforms to some semantic rules, which may be user-defined, or included in a DTD (or an XML schema). The DMR OpenText approach recognises the varied elements of control as well as the trade-offs that hapen in real life data interchange.