Reasons to Structure

[Daniel Emory]

--- Charles Beck <Charles.Beck at infor.com> wrote:
> Besides-with the caveat that I have not actually
> experienced *enforced* structured authoring, per
> sé-if you need to format a word or phrase for
> emphasis or for special recognition (such as bolding
> UI elements), don't you still have to tag that
> content somewhere? So where is the great advantage?
=======================================
Semantic tagging of a word or phrase can be
implemented by wrapping it with an EDD-defined
text-range element whose element name describes the
semantic type. A format rule in the EDD automatically
applies the correct format to it.  
================================
> As I understand structured authoring (with my
> admittedly limited understanding), its strengths
> seem to lie more in the realm of freeing the author
> from having to make specific adhoc formatting
> decisions that may or (more likely) may not be
> consistent. That, and enforcing certain rules about
> what content is required, accepted, optional, etc.
===================================
In a properly designed EDD, there is no such thing as
ad-hoc formatting. That is, Format rules define all
formatting. These format rules can be based on one or
more of the following: element name, element context,
element attribute value(s), and format change lists
referenced from within the format rules. Typically,
full use of these capabilities can drastically reduce
the number of paragraph and character formats required
in a FrameMaker template. I could go on to describe
numerous other advantages of this approach to
formatting.

Typically, full use of