Xpress is an advanced authoring tool that brings the power of structured editing to authors while hiding the complexity of XML / SGML. The word processing like user interface makes Xpress suited for a broad community of users thereby reducing the costs of training. The wasteful and hazardous document transformations are eliminated by letting the authors generate native XML source data.

Ease of use

Xpress is the ideal tool for those who need to create structured information with the ease of a common word processing system. The facility has no relationship to the complexity of the arbitrary DTD in use. A set of additional mechanisms will enhance the productivity by automating some operations like synchronization in multilingual environments. Drag ‘n drop of document contents and structure is a major facility provided by Xpress.

On-line validation

Authors are permanently informed about the conformance of their work against a given set of rules as soon as a DTD applies to the document being edited. An intuitive color scheme allows mistakes but highlights them to the author.

Advanced authoring aids

In all working modes, the list of Valid Elements and the Attribute Editor will tell the author what elements/attributes are allowed at the current cursor location or for the current selection. This proves especially useful as the author’s creativity becomes independent from the underlying set of applying rules.

Drag ‘n drop

Based on the information provided by the Catalog, all objects recognized by Xpress can be dropped into the working area for processing according to their nature and type.

Table support

CALS and HTML 4.0 tables are supported by Xpress.

Native preview

Because Xpress can be equipped with an XSL-T transformation engine, authors are given the ability to preview the result of their work immediately within their editing tool: generated HTML can be browsed, derived RTF can be displayed. This facility can be extended to other formats recognized by Internet Explorer.

WYSIWYG

Xpress currently uses a subset of XSL to format / display the information on screen. As soon as an object is created by the author, the corresponding style is applied.

Customization

Minimal efforts are required to generate dedicated authoring environments that maximize the productivity: menus, toolbars, set of macros set of forms can be preloaded according to: the profile of the author, the selected DTD or the kind of work to perform. More than 300 functions are accessible over the COM interface of Xpress giving access to both the low-level (document) and the high-level (Xpress commands). Almost any manual operation that can be performed by an author can also be programmed from outside the editing tool.

Thanks to its COM architecture, Xpress is very easy to integrate with workflow systems or structured repositories for instance.