The process of accessing, transferring and manipulating electronic documents can be time-consuming and cumbersome due to myriad (and some cases proprietary) data storage and formatting schemes.
As documents become organized using hypertext links and with the addition of hypermedia, ways to operate on these documents becomes critical.
SGML is a an example of this concept which allows text versions of files to be transmitted electronically. Text files are transmitted and then rendered by the receiver. Even Web HTML files are really just text files.
Adding "structure" to documents also facilitates operations on the documents. This includes actions such as searching, sorting, or any one of a myriad of operations to be performed on an electronic document..
Thus, Benefits of "adding structure" to electronic documents include:
Re-usability
Inter-system operability
Ease of storage and retrieval
Low distribution costs
Quick access
Ease of maintenance and updating
Longevity
Ease of organization and re-organization
Appearance easily changed
Problems associated with conversion to structured documents include:
Huge initial time commitment
Send questions and comments to: Karen Lemone