ebookcraft speakers Tzviya Siegman and Benjamin Young talk about how and why they realized Wiley needed an HTML-first workflow.
One for All? Should Different Markets or Retailers Get Different ONIX Files?
A lot of software vendors and some firms go to great lengths to prepare ONIX files tailored to markets, creating separate files by certification standards for BISG, BookNet, and BIC. And some ONIX senders tailor their output based on what a retailer requests.
At BookNet Canada, we think that so long as the ONIX file is a properly prepared XML document it shouldn’t matter. Here’s why.
ONIX Is Easy
At BookNet, we sometimes find ourselves trying to defend ONIX . People are often asking, “Why can’t it be easy?” But it is. After the last time I heard this I thought that a review of why ONIX is easy was due.
Web-First Workflow: Confluence Proof-of-Concept
Back in May, Noah blogged about the potential for Confluence by Atlassian to work as a web-first xml workflow solution. His post put Confluence up alongside WordPress from SFU’s Book of MPub (full disclosure: I worked with John Maxwell in 2009 on Start With the Web and still do some related work today) as a contender. Really, any CMS/wiki can work, it’s just a matter of how well it works and whether it works for you.
BNC 101: What Is ONIX?
ONIX for Books is an international standard for exchanging important information about books and related products.Here we take you through the basics: what you need to know about ONIX and how to use it.
BNC 101: What Is XML?
What is XML? is the first in a series of BNC 101 blog posts where we’re going to try our best to break down some of the complex tech concepts we talk about all the time into plain language.
XML is a term that gets thrown around the publishing industry a lot, but what does it actually mean?
Confluence As a Web-Based Publishing System
In conferences and sessions we often discuss XML based publishing workflows…a concept I love, but I term I hate. Concept — content that is single sourced, marked up and is used to drive a plethora of end uses (i.e. pbook, ebook, web content, app, etc…). Why do I hate it? It is scary, maybe not to everyone, but to enough people in the “content business” that the term itself can often kill any hope of implementation.
Here’s why we need solutions that take the scary out of XML publishing workflows.
ONIXEdit vs. EXA Editor
EXA Editor is the venerable XML editor for use with ONIX that BookNet Canada made available as a free download for the past few years. It was an excellent product with a not-so-excellent GUI (nerdese for your ability to find and click on things) and a useful tool for learning about ONIX. A number of publishers’ ONIX programs are, or were, based on it.Here’s how the new ONIXEdit stacks up.
The ACP's CPDS Digital Publishing Workshop
On December 9th and 10th I attended the ACP ’s CPDS (Canadian Publishers Digital Services) Digital Publishing Workshop, which focused on real solutions for the average Canadian publisher. I’m a BookNetter and not a publisher, but I managed to sneak my way into this workshop after I agreed to speak at it—more on that to follow.
This two-day workshop dived into the dirt of ePub production on day one and focused on practical solutions for digital workflow on day two.
Data Exchange Tip #7: Mac-Based XML Solutions—Using oXygen
XML on Mac is a rare bird, or if not rare, seriously undercooked. There isn’t the same amount of options as on a PC, and certainly not an ONIX-based editor such as with ONIXEdit. There are a couple of free XML editors available, however Smultron is no longer updating and Serna Free XML Editor is not available for commercial use, instead deferring to Serna Enterprise for businesses. However, Serna Free is a good tool for getting used to XML.
