How does SGML translate into so many formats?
Conventional documentation programs (word processors, desktop publishers, multi-media) each have a different way of storing information, which means they cannot easily exchange the same documents. SGML can translate into so many display formats because, in its raw format, it is not concerned with the way in which the contents of a document are displayed, but rather with the types of information a document contains. The information in an SGML document is interspersed with a special type of meta-information, known as tags, which describe the information’s structure and content. These descriptions may be used by a converter or a browser to define the display of the various types of information contained in the document. A single SGML file may contain any kind of information–text, graphics, video, sound, even the contents of a database. An SGML converter can be designed to isolate any number of individual information components of in SGML document, and produce a separate new file for each
