This chapter provide an overview of the publishing capabilities provided by Arbortext Editor and Arbortext Publishing Engine. They explain terminology and each component in the publishing system. Subsequent chapters explore each component in more detail.

Publishing is the process by which Arbortext Editor transforms an XML or SGML document to some other representation, such as HTML or PDF (also sometimes known as “Composition”). Most often, the input to the publishing process is a document in memory and the output of the process is stored on disk. The process is flexible and general, and almost any aspect of the operation can vary from case to case.

Some publishing operations take place entirely within Arbortext Editor. Others involve running external applications, such as the HTML Help compiler. Some publishing operations may run on a separate machine, the Arbortext Publishing Engine. Publishing operations often run smaller, simpler publishing operations as part of their processing. Publishing operations can produce transformed XML or SGML. The result of a publishing operation may reside in memory or be stored to disk.