Presentations and tutorials
When the going gets tough, XProc gets going
This presentation will report on a project that started as the simple setup for an XML-native workflow for the Greek Tax Authority. As the project evolved, the requirements and complexity grew exponentially. The sources for migration went from 3000 Microsoft Word documents to 15000 documents stemming from various sources, including scanned pages in polytonic Greek. Customizing the authoring environment to the project's needs, turned out to be so complex that both input and output required special tuning.
In this process flexibility became crucial. And with flexibility quality assessment became an important part of the project's workflow. It would be too easy to make this presentation a complaint about how fast things can go sour in a project. However, the presentation will rather focus on solutions and opportunities found in the process.
The heart of the XML-native workflow consists of some XProc3 pipelines. The application of XProc in this project eventually turned out to be the enabler of the required flexibility. This presentation will present some background and some techniques on the use of XProc in this project and where it was found to be particularly useful.
Geert Bormans is an information architect with 30 years of experience solving complex challenges for customers.
He works with structured data technologies such as XML and Linked Data, and has delivered successful projects in content migration, content management, and electronic publishing.
His expertise lies in designing foundational information architectures and models, particularly for technical documentation, legislative publishing, and the insurance industry.
Geert is also an active member of the markup technologies community, contributing to standards development and serving as a founding member of the Markup UK conference organizing committee.