A cross-format architecture for professional publishing

When generating content for high-quality output, the issue of converting data from sources of any quality comes across. Even with just text, the use of desktop tools to produce input for high quality processes such as professional publishing or e-learning material generation requires professionals to convert the result, adjust it and produce the final output object. Since conversion is usually unidirectional, re-use of content and minor amendments are prevented once the conversion is done, unless the same professionals are involved in all the production steps. This raises costs and stiffens the production process. In this paper we propose a flexible conversion architecture, an intermediate data format and automatic high-quality pagination tool that make the process of generating high-quality results from low quality sources almost automatic, and that require no quality adjustments after the conversion. The end result is that the original authoring tools can be used for all productions steps, thus returning the whole production process in the hand of the original author.