Working with ordinary word processor documents differs from using structured documents with Arbortext Editor. When you create a document with a word processor, you indicate document elements, such as a title or paragraphs, by formatting the text as you progress through the document.

For example, you make the text look like a title by changing its size and adding space above and below it. You create a new paragraph by inserting one or more line returns, starting the text on a new line.

In Arbortext Editor, you can identify these same document elements by using XML or SGML markup to label the elements. In the Arbortext Editor Edit window, tag icons (usually as tag pairs) represent this markup. When you enter text, you type between a specific tag pair. For example, you enter a chapter title between a pair of title tags. You enter each paragraph between a separate pair of paragraph tags.

The advantage of marking document elements in this way is that you can keep the format instructions separate and easily reuse text. You can also use part of one document in another document without changing the format of the extracted text. For example, the title from the extracted text will automatically change to look like the titles in the other document. In other words, if part of a document is inserted as a chapter, the title tag in the contents resembles a chapter title format. If inserted into a section, the title tag resembles a section title. The paragraphs also become justified or indented if that is the style in the other document.

Structured documents impose rules for when and where these element tags can be inserted. Each document type has its own set of rules.

For example, a letter document type has one set of rules to make it look like a letter, and the book document type has a different set to resemble a book. Besides the different document organization structure, some elements for each are different. Letters might have element tags for salutation, closing, and enclosure, while a book uses chapter, title, and section tags. Both the letter and the book probably have paragraph tags.

With Arbortext Editor, you do not need to know XML or SGML to write a new document using a document type. Arbortext Editor provides tools to ensure that you follow the rules for the document type while you insert elements to create your new document.