Streamlining standards publishing with eXtyles STS

If you move in standards circles, you may already know some essential facts about NISO STS (ANSI/NISO Z39.102:2017, the Standards Tag Suite):

  • It’s a standard for full text XML markup of standards (how meta is that!)
  • It was originally developed to serve ISO production requirements and later became a NISO standard
  • It’s based on NISO JATS (ANSI/NISO Z39.96:2016, the Journal Article Tag Suite), because journal articles and standards have many structural similarities
  • Development work for NISO STS was done by a global working group with more than 40 members from more than 30 organizations, and was sponsored by ASME and ASTM

The outcome of two years of development work and the subsequent public comment and revision cycle is a robust standard and a full set of supporting materials specifically designed for the markup of standards.

Why adopt STS?

Standards publishing is a complex process: standards are authored by committees of experts, require multiple rounds of revisions, are often published in multiple languages and formats, and may later be adopted by other standards bodies. Switching to an XML workflow with STS may seem like adding an extra step—but in fact, it can save time, reduce costs, increase interoperability, facilitate co-publishing, and streamline the process of publishing a standard in multiple formats. Using STS can also help improve discoverability of your standards.

If you haven’t yet taken a look at STS and the STS XML models, check out the standard here and then head over to http://niso-sts.org/, where you’ll find the DTD, XSD, and RelaxNG files, Tag Library documentation, and lots of examples and best practices.

But what does this have to do with eXtyles?

Inera strongly advocates the use of standards; STS is the latest in a long line of publishing standards we have integrated into the eXtyles family of software for publishers of complex technical and scholarly content.

And we know our way around STS, not least because Inera CEO Bruce Rosenblum was a co-chair of the NISO STS Working Group that developed the standard.

That’s why we’ve developed eXtyles STS—a user-friendly solution that lets you style and edit your standards documents in the familiar environment of Word and then convert those documents to STS XML at the push of a button. You can use eXtyles STS “off the shelf,” or we can customize it for your unique requirements.

eXtyles STS lets you create STS XML from Word to drive multi-format electronic and print publication and to facilitate easy metadata and content interchange with your publishing partners.

With eXtyles STS, you can

  • Automate time-consuming document cleanup and facilitate editing
  • Validate internal cross-references
  • Create rich, accurate STS XML from Word
  • Enable a single-source workflow for PDF, ePub, Kindle, HTML, and more
  • Achieve conformance with publishing industry standards

Learn more about our solutions for standards publishers here. To discuss how eXtyles STS or another eXtyles-based solution can help you simplify your standards publication processes and ease your transition to STS, contact us at [email protected]!