XML Professional Publisher
 | This article contains promotional content. (December 2007) |
XML Professional Publisher (XPP) is a high-end publishing system which was developed out of a proprietary typesetting system.
XPP is a standards-based, high performance, content formatting and publishing application for the automatic composition, transformation, and rendering of XML, SGML or tagged ACII content into high-quality output into PostScript and PDF format. Because it holds the XML or SGML in its native format, it is easy to re-export the data after paper pagination, even if corrections have been made in XPP. The software is used worldwide to produce a wide variety of publications including Technical Documentation, Scientific, Medical Journals (STM, Directory, Dictionary and Legal loose-leaf publishing.
XPP was originally, in the ealry 1980s, a proprietary system which included the software and hardware. It was one of the first systems to combine high speed batch composition with an interactive mode displaying WYSIWYG pages. At the start Xyvision was forced to build its own display hardware as the off the shelf hardware at that time was not up to the task of rapidly displaying pages. Over the years as off the shelf hardware became more powerful, Xyvision moved away from its own hardware to become a software-only vendor. Xyvision was a publicly held company and evolved in 1995 into the privately owned company called XyEnterprise. Xyvision at one stage employed over 400 people when it was manufacturing hardware. XyEnterprise currently employs some 80 people to delvop and maintain the XPP software as well as supporting its other products, Contenta and LiveContent.
One of the distinctive factors of the XPP software is that each page is stored as a separate file. This allows XPP to open up a document at every page and reformat this page as a separate unit. XPP can even compose a single line as a separate unit. The ability to handle pages as individual objects makes it shine in loose-leaf publications.
The software also has a very active users group which helps communicate back to XyEnterprise what the users want to see in the future. With each version that is released a new set of advanced capabilites help the software to be at the forefront of its field over 25 years after its original launch.