Class Schedule
22 AUG | intro
27 AUG | clients
29 AUG | servers
05 Sep | networks
10 Sep | basics lab
12 Sep | structural layer
17 Sep | presentational layer
19 Sep | working with layers |
24 Sep | behavior layer |
26 Sep | images & design
01 Oct | website lab
03 Oct | object layers |
control objects |
objects practice |
control display |
display practice |
next session
08 Oct | tools that read markup
10 Oct | document markup lab
15 Oct | spreadsheets
17 Oct | formulas & functions
22 Oct | data display
18 Oct | Fall Break
24 Oct | database tools
29 Oct | spreadsheets lab
31 Oct | relational databases
05 Nov | tables
07 Nov | relationships
12 Nov | input & output
14 Nov | SQL
19 Nov | complex queries
26 Nov | databases lab
21 Nov | Thanksgiving
28 Nov | presentation design
03 Dec | presentation delivery
05 Dec | presentation lab
12 Dec | 0800-1100 | final in class presentation
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What is a document markup language and how do object manipulation tools work with the language?
A markup language identifies pieces of a document so that another application can do something with those pieces. All document creation tools have a markup language.
In early days of text processing, some markup tools used to let you see and edit their markup code; Word and MacWrite usually didn't. The following image shows an example of how WordPerfect showed you the markup in the text.
All formatters need to distinguish the text to be printed from
instructions about how to print
these instructions are called markup.
Markup has a long history. But one can understand markup by thinking about some markup languages that you are already familiar with.
HTML, the HyperText Markup Language, is an example of SGML - Standard Generalized Markup Language.
XML, the eXtensible Markup Language is much more robust, and Microsoft has embedded a lot of XML in MSWord
WordStar was one of the earlier ones. Since there was no graphical user interface at that time, it had to show you in text what it was doing with its markup, much as the UNIX text editors do.
WordPerfect was very good for text-centric documents and was thus embraced by folks creating legal documents. The ability to see and control the text markup was critical.
There have been a lot of markup tools brought to market over the years.
But Microsoft's Word soon became the dominant markup tool.
There are a lot of possibilities out there. LibreOffice Writer may eventually become a competitor to MSWord because it is based on XML and on the Open Document standard and has most of the same features as MSWord. It may well be the best choice for many. But, for now, although not everyone likes it, MSWord is a very powerful tool.
But are MSWord and LibreOffice Writer simply word processors? And what is the difference between a text editor and a word processor?
Are they something more? Perhaps an object manipulator?
You might not need to use MSWord and if that is the case, there are lots of alternatives. Consider your needs:
We will use MSWord to discuss effective formatting of text documents, but knowing that one can also use LibreOffice Writer as an alternative way of applying the same principles
First, let's consider some of the structural elements:
To do so, open The Awful German Language, by Mark Twain. Copy it all, then paste it into a document so we can work with it.