Rebecca asks:
============================
Hi guys

If you're planning to roundtrip through XML, with different authors
using different XML editors, you'd need to have all the formatting in
the EDD, right?

Or am I on completely the wrong track in my ignorance?

Thanks
Rebecca
=============================

I think the question is a little bit off, and probably because the whole thread 
has not been clear or consistent on what is meant by "structure" or 
"formatting".? I would say that there should be no formatting in the XML.? In 
fact, the structural elements should be declared for their *structure* and not 
for the formatting you might think they imply.? Any formatting should be 
applied to the content at the last possible moment, and it should be applied 
according to rules about how to interpret the structure.? 

So I was a major culprit in confusing the issue when I said you could create an 
EDD with attributes that named the formats you want.? That would break the 
rules because it expresses *formatting* within the *structure*.? In my defense, 
I only mentioned that as an absurd example.? But honestly, such a scheme would 
produce lousy XML -- either storing these formatting-only attributes in the 
XML, or losing the formatting instructions.

The bottom line is that XML is structured content.? No formatting.? FrameMaker 
adds formatting to structured content.? (It also maintains structure 
internally, and you can use it to edit structure and content.)? The way 
FrameMaker adds formatting to XML is to map formatting rules to the 
structure...? In the EDD.? You can apply formatting outside of that (use format 
catalogs, etc), but you get flaky results -- that's the issue that started this 
thread.? But if you exclude such bad user behavior, then in fact, the ONLY way 
for FrameMaker to apply formatting to structure is through the EDD.? So the 
answer to your question is a resounding YES.? 
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