If you’re thinking about the adoption of a structured authoring tool like FontoXML, you should read the article on this topic by Barry Schaeffer (2013). In this article Barry, a veteran of more than 45 years in the content automation industry, not only describes the ‘tortured relationship’ between Word and XML (we also wrote about this ‘marriage’), he also claims:

“The key ingredient in whatever you do will be increased discipline in the authoring process; to authors, an extra layer of intellectual overhead that virtually always generates resistance that no level of software or amount of funding will fully ameliorate.”

We could not agree more. Our most successful clients are well aware that adopting structured authoring does not happen overnight. It’s a change process in which discipline plays a very important part.

By making FontoXML super intuitive, we’ve made this change easier than ever before. By providing innovative tools that make the life of an author enjoyable, e.g. semi automatic tagging, content referencing in a few clicks and smart collaboration. Add discipline to that and you’ve got a magic formula:

Structured authoring = Discipline x Enjoyable software*

* Our partner WIRIS provides a very enjoyable formula editor which we’ve integrated into FontoXML.