XPP Data Sheet

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XPP Automatic Looseleaf and XyDiff Publishing Overview

[Product Image]XPP Automatic Looseleaf Overview

XPP Looseleaf Publishing software provides comprehensive tools for streamlining the update of pages in frequently-revised publications and significantly reduces the time and cost of updating pages and maintaining looseleaf publications. The goal of publishing documents in looseleaf format is to generate and issue as few new pages as possible with each document update.

Once users define their preferences, the software automatically composes and paginates with the goal of creating the minimum number of change pages while following their preferences. Automatic looseleaf composes only the edited pages. Additionally, the same page numbers that were in effect before composition remain in effect after automatic composition. With Automatic Looseleaf composition, users first set up a looseleaf style sheet in which they can define:

Life Cycle of a Looseleaf Document

Generally, issuing an update does not necessitate reprinting the entire document. You only print and distribute the pages that have changed. However, after a series of updates, you usually incorporate all updates into the document, print the entire document, and then reissue the entire document to your customers. The reissue replaces the current version of the document. The following illustrate the life cycle of a Looseleaf document:

Initial release

The Looseleaf document life cycle begins with an initial release. An initial release is the first printing of an entire document. A release can be either a new document or a document that is being reissued in its entirety. In an initial release:

Updates (also known as revisions or supplements)

Between releases, you often revise sections of a Looseleaf document. The revisions between releases are called updates. Lengthy publications tend to have long life spans, but require frequent updates. Because updates are ongoing, the update process is often described as a cycle within the life cycle of a Looseleaf document. Updates are:

Reissues (also known as subsequent release)

A reissue is similar to the first release because the entire document is recomposed, repaginated, and reprinted. Think of a reissued document as a new release. When and why you create a reissue depends on the guidelines established by your company.  For a reissue, Looseleaf composition:

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Looseleaf Manifest

The Looseleaf manifest is a database that stores and tracks the information for producing updates and releases, maintains an edit history of a Looseleaf document, and provides the information for generating a list of effective pages.

When you compose a Looseleaf document, XPP automatically stores information about each page in the manifest. You can display, view, and edit the information in the manifest.

List of Effective Pages (LOEP)

With Looseleaf documents, it is important to track pages changed through the life of a document. To track page revisions, you can create a list of effective pages (LOEP) when a document is printed. The LOEP defines the current status of a document.

With the LOEP, you can determine precisely what pages you need to have the most current version of the document. The LOEP contains information about each page of a document, including a change number for each page. The change number is the actual number associated with an update.

XyDiff Differencing Engine Overview

Once you have an initial release or baseline division in XPP, updates are created using the XyDiff Differencing Engine. XyDiff is an XPP utility that compares the XML version of an existing XML baseline division with an updated XML file, then outputs the differences to a file with trace elements to show where changes occurred.

XyDiff is typically used in an XPP automatic Looseleaf environment.  In an automated looseleaf environment, XyDiff is called by an application interface or shell script. However, XyDiff can also be run manually from a command line.

XyDiff compares the contents of two files and generates a page-delimited output file that consists of pages with differences. This output file is suitable as input for the import program. XyDiff does not output pages that have no traced differences unless you explicitly request them. You can use XyDiff in the following ways:

XyDiff Configuration File

The XyDiff configuration file contains rules for hanuling editorial changes. Rules in the configuration file tell XyDiff whether or not to trace textual differences between the two input files. Traces appear in the updated “working baseline” division as change bars or deletion deltas. An example of using this file is for special characters, spaces, tabs and text strings that you want XyDiff to ignore. The XyDiff configuration file is used to:

Significant Macro/Tag Control File

The Significant Macro/Tag control file lists tags and XyMacros that you want XyDiff to trace different from the default behavior and update the pages.  All tags/macros not listed in this file will not be traced, but will be included in the page in the final XyDiff output file.  An example of using this file is when you do not want XyDiff to trace or include the page in the final output file when an XML element has changed.

Alias Control File

The Alias control file allows you to define aliases for the default pickup <pick> and footnotes <foot> XyMacros. An example of using this file is for XML element names that need to be hanuled as pickup and footnote callouts.

Creating a Baseline Division

If you have a document that was previously published without using XPP Looseleaf and now you want to produce the document using XPP Looseleaf and XyDiff, you must first rebuild the publication history of the document – the baseline.

The goal is to rebuild the release and update history of the existing publication and to preserve the integrity of that document history. You can then create future releases and updates using Xyvision Loose-leaf, which will track added, deleted, and changed pages.

To rebuild the publication history of a document, you must:

Note: Fully integrating XPP Looseleaf and XyDiff with Contenta or another content management system requires customisation due to the numerous content management and publish requirements.