XML - Features and Benefits of XML Conversion

What is XML?

XML stands for Extensible Markup Language. XML represent the text information in a standard format. XML was designed to transport and store information. It is used for documents containing structure information in a reliable way. These documents include vector graphics, mathematical equations, e-commerce transactions, server APIs, object meta-data, and a thousand other types of structured data.

Following is a feature of XML:

* XML is designed to be self-descriptive
* XML was designed to carry data, not to display data
* XML is being designed to distribute structured data over the internet
* XML specification defines a standard way to add markup to documents
* It used both ASCII and Unicode standard text within documents
* All elements are easily identified in the documents
* No formatting data is contained in the documents
* Structure information contains content (words, picture, etc.)
* XML tags are predefined, so you can define your own tags
* Extensible markup language is a W3C recommendation, etc.

Why XML?

XML was created so that opulently structured documents could be used over the web. HTML and SGML is the only feasible alternatives, are not realistic for this purpose. XML is merely a standardized meta-format that can represent any type of data and for which precise schema definitions are optional. XML support wide range of miscellaneous applications such as content analysis, browsing, authoring, etc.

What are the benefits of XML?

Converting any data to XML not only gives you the ability to publish documents to the Web, CD-ROM, print and to handheld devices at the click of a button, it also brings very real cost savings for any businesses, professionals and individuals. XML has several usable features that make it so popular and widely used by businesses to integrate enterprises, supply chains, and Web applications because it having following benefits:

* Self describing
* Simplicity and openness
* Industry Standardization
* Software and platform independent
* Extensibility, flexibility, scalability and versatility
* Merging materials from different suppliers
* Machine readable context data
* Separates content from presentation
* Repurpose data for diverse publication media
* Supports multilingual documents and Unicode
* Facilitates the comparison and aggregation of data
* Can implant existing and numerous data types

At last, XML format is the first choice for all business industries that need to manage their intellectual capital. Just convert your doc, word, text, excel, csv, html, xhtml, sgml, binary, ado, edi or any data format into XML because XML conversion offers the most lucrative package of benefits at reasonable cost.

Author: Adison Patel

Source: http://www.articlesbase.com