If you're not a developer or technically oriented, Extensible Markup Language, or XML, may mean nothing to you, unless perhaps you have a website, or have heard about XML Software in passing. A markup language is a coded computer language that formats text and objects for the World Wide Web; HTML being the most widely used of these languages. So, how does XML compare to HTML? XML is not a replacement language for HTML rather they are complementary to each other in the following regards:

1. Unlike HTML, XML was not been developed to format and display web content. Instead, XML serves to transport or store online data.
2. Unlike HTML, XML code alone has no function and its functionality has to be activated by a short third-party program often created in JavaScript.
3. Like HTML, XML is a markup language approved by W3C, the World Wide Web Consortium and users can freely edit XML code.
4. Unlike HTML, XML is an open source markup language where any user can invent his or her own unique tags. HTML, however, has formalized tag rules. For example, a paragraph must always begin with a tag and end with a tag.

To better illustrate this last item, if you're composing an online letter, you might want to create uniquely personal XML tags which do not exist in HTML, for instance:

To JohnFrom JoeHello JohnSincerelyJoe

XML has become a ubiquitous online language although invisible to the average person. Just like HTML, users edit XML in plain text. Yet, because of its open source nature, it has still become too complex for some web developers. As a result, XML editing software products, with time-saving features, are now widely available. The main question then becomes: which web development software XML editor to buy?

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Find XML language software tutorials online

Before testing XML program software, learn as much as you can about the language itself.

I recommend: E3Schools offers an extensive yet easy to understand XML tutorial. O'Reilly Publishing has created XML.com, the ultimate XML resource. On the website, Tim Bray's XML tutorial is well worth reading.

Determine whether you would prefer text-based XML software or a graphic-oriented XML editor

Graphic-oriented XML editors have a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) feature that allows the user to immediately preview the results of an XML coded page. Some users, however, may prefer editing XML in a no-frills text approach

I recommend: Download and preview free XML software. Xstandard Lite is a free XML editor software program with a browser-based WYSIWYG feature. A full-feature version is also available for purchase. Altova Authentic and Altova's XML Spy are both WYSIWYG editors that can be downloaded, but as free 30-day trials. An extensive list of other XML editors can be found at XML.com.

Determine if you would need XML editor software that edits XML-based languages

XHTML, RSS, and SMIL are the most popular of the XML-based languages. XHTML stands for Extensible Hypertext Markup Language, offering the best features of XML and HTML together. Some call it 'HTML 2.0.' RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. Most blogs are powered by XML-based RSS. SMIL stands for Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language, a W3C-recommended language used to time, layout, embed, and transition online multimedia presentations.

I recommend: The New York Times describes how it uses RSS. Download a free trial of RSS Content Builder to stream content to your website. Download a beta trial of XForm, IBM's RSS editor add-on to the Foxfire browser. Download a trial version of the oXygen XML editor software, which edits XHTML content. Or, you might want to download a trial version of SourceForge's SMILGen SMIL authoring tool.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  XML-formatted data enables data-sharing between incompatible data formats exchanged between incompatible computer systems.
• •  Because XML is a text-based language, XML language software offers more adaptability to new operating systems, new applications, and new browsers.