A Generalized Approach to Document Markup

Text processing and word processing systems typically require users to intersperse additional information in the natural text of the document being processed. This added information, called "markup, " serves two purposes: 1. it separates the logical elements of the document; and 2. it specifies the processing functions to be performed on those elements. Consider how the user of such a system marks up a doc-ument. There are three distinct steps, although he may not perceive them as such. 1. First, he analyzes the information structure and other attributes of the document; that is, he identifies each meaningful separate lement, and characterizes it as a paragraph, heading, ordered list, footnote, or some other element ype. 2. He then determines, from memory or a style book, the processing instructions ("controls") that will produce the format desired for that type of element. 3. Finally, he inserts the chosen controls into the text. Here is how the start of this paper looks when marked up with controls in the Script formatting language (1): Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial dvantage, the ACM copyright notice and the title of the publication and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of the Associa