Scriptura – Document and E-Forms Generation based on Open Standards

Stephen Munro, Software Projects, Brisbane, QLD, Australia, 4002. smunro@sp.com.au

Abstract

Scriptura is a high performance, W3C standards based enterprise personalization solution combining:

document composition,
document production and rendering,
multi-channel delivery including HTML, XML, PDF, TIFF, PDF, RTF (MS Word), JPG, PNG etc.
E-Forms capability;
web application development; and
built on W3C standards: XSL, XSLT, XPath, XSL-FO, XForms

Introduction

Today’s enterprise can choose from a myriad of options when considering how to efficiently and effectively communicate with customers. The range of possible communication channels continues to grow and evolve. Wikis, blogs and podcasts have joined the tried & trusted methods of print and direct mail.

A major challenge with customer communications is to improve efficiency and manage costs especially when multiple channels are utilized. If an enterprise was to create individual document layout and content for each channel, the cost of the document generation process would likely escalate to unmanageable levels as the number of channels increased.

One approach facilitated by improvements in technology standards and systems are document generation solutions (such as Scriptura) that deliver a ‘compose once, publish multi channel’ capability.

Gartner terms this capability the Automated Document Facility (ADF). With ADF, the concept of manufacturing techniques is applied to enterprise production of documents and the associated workflow.

Scriptura is a W3C standards based solution - the W3C has led the development of a number of standards in document generation such as XSL-FO (for describing device independent layout of data), XSLT (the language for transforming XML data), XPath (a query language for XML data).

These W3C standards are equally applicable to:

publication via HTML to the web;
email and output standards like PDF;
volume dispatch of customer communications (eg. letters, documents, brochures etc) by third parties;
data and document interchange using XML.

Scriptura is a powerful easy-to-use software suite that integrates well with fulfillment systems.

Scriptura Architecture

Copyright

Software Projects, © 2008. The authors assign to Southern Cross University and other educational and non-profit institutions a non-exclusive licence to use this document for personal use and in courses of instruction provided that the article is used in full and this copyright statement is reproduced. The authors also grant a non-exclusive licence to Southern Cross University to publish this document in full on the World Wide Web and on CD-ROM and in printed form with the conference papers and for the document to be published on mirrors on the World Wide Web.