DAISY—Structure Guidelines: Introduction to Structured Markup
These guidelines are written to assist producers of talking books so that the tagging or mark up of a DAISY DTB can result in providing the end user with an understanding of the structure of the book. They are applicable to DTBs produced in accordance with the DAISY/NISO 2005 standard, Specifications for the Digital Talking Book, also known as DAISY 3, and ANSI/NISO Z39.86.
The guidelines show how to recognize the structural elements (e.g., prefaces, chapters, sections, sidebars, lists, etc.) in a print or electronic text book, and how to tag those elements using Extensible Markup Language (XML). The term book refers to any type of document or digital content, including magazines, workbooks, reference works, etc.
The DTB structure set by the producer determines the level of navigability available to the reader. The greater the structural markup, the greater the number of navigation points available to the reader. This is, of course, partially constrained by the structure of the source material and the resources available to produce the DTB. These guidelines will help producers to select the most suitable approach. However, once the degree of markup is chosen, it is strongly recommended that the directions for tagging provided in these guidelines be followed closely to help ensure the markup is valid—i.e. it strictly follows a set of rules called a Document Type Definition (DTD), described below. All finished content must be valid according to the DTBook DTD.
The DAISY Structure Guidelines describe how to correctly apply the tags from the current DTBook DTD which has been developed as part of the DAISY Standard.
Familiarity with XML markup and with authoring and validation tools is generally required for this type of detailed structuring work according to the DAISY Standard.
This introduction presents some of the general aspects of structuring a DTB. Examples of various categories of DAISY DTBs are given—from the simplest (audio and title only) to the most complex (audio and full text). Markup is explained, and the order in which content is presented to the end user is discussed. Hierarchy, nesting, and navigation are examined. Follow the links below for the various areas of this introduction to structured mark up.
- The Structure of a DAISY DTB
- DTB DTD
- NCX
- Mark Up Tags
- Attributes
- Required Tags
- Link
- Meta
- Front, Body and Rear Matter
- Levels
- Nesting
- Navigation and Hierarchy
- Sequential Structure