The same information can appear as a table cell in one document and a paragraph in another, and the same document can be formatted one way in an electronic document but quite differently when printed on paper. The format developed for one training manual, for example, can be applied to a manual about a completely different topic. The information can contain links and cross-references to other information, either within the document or elsewhere. Cross-references can be stored independently of the information itself, making them more robust and easier to maintain than when they are embedded in documents. Automatic page layouts The information can be printed using automatically generated page layouts.
Automatic generation reduces the cost of reprinting when the information changes.
The information can easily be delivered electronically in multiple formats. The user can be allowed to update or respond to the information. We use SGML because it is a stable, robust, internationally recognised and widely adopted suite of standards that facilitates the storage, formatting and reuse of structured information. SGML stands for 'Standard Generalised Markup Language'. SGML is not a predefined set of tags that can be used to mark up documents.