{The easy way to define customized \XML-to-\LaTeX\ converters}
{Keiichiro Shikano}
{Although \LaTeX\ has definitely been one of the best typesetting tools for
decades, we often need some more rigid data formats as the sources of long
and/or structured documents like books. Using a customized \XML\ or any kind
of markup language as the input, and then, before typesetting the text and
applying your preferable styles with \LaTeX, converting the source data with
\XSLT\ into a more standardized one like DocBook might be one of the more
practical solutions. However, this would require rather specialized skills
for both \XSLT\ and the standard itself, as well as the markup language and
the typesetting tool you use.

It would be nice to be able to generate a special \XML-to-\LaTeX\ converter as
needed, just by defining some rules relating each \XML\ element directly to a
\LaTeX\ command or environment. We propose a relatively straightforward and
intuitive tool to do that. It is written in a dialect of Scheme programming
languages, and works as a \DSL\ (Domain Specific Language) to let you define
the set of conversion rules as S-expressions, which have the advantage in
handling the tree structure of an \XML. In fact, we have already created and
published dozens of books using this tool, and will show some in this
presentation.

There have been some alternatives in this area. \ConTeXt\ has native
\XML\ support. \TeX\acro{ML} provides an intermediate format for
serializing \XML\ into \LaTeX. There also are niches for tools like
\code{pandoc}. The approach we are proposing here will not obviate these
tools, but could be a good option when you are thinking of \XML\ as a
source format for your document to be typeset using \LaTeX.}