Between the Devil and the DTD: 
authoring in the Brave New World of structured documentation

In the Brave New World of structured documentation, writers find themselves between a rock and a hard place, between the Devil (following provided templates and guidelines, but always teetering precariously near the abyss of chaos) and the DTD (requiring unswerving allegiance to an inflexible set of rules).

Before structured documentation	After structured documentation
Lone writers in their garrets	Collaborative authors in a CMS
Writer as artist	Author as specialist
The tyranny of the template	The dictatorship of the DTD
Personal WYSIWYG tools	Integrated collaborative toolkits

	The Devil made me do it	The DTD made me do it
Design:	Template and style overrides	Rearrange content to fit the rules
Organization:	Traditional top-down outline	Modular bottom-up mindmap
Output:	Tweak layout at the last minute	Settle for imperfect layout and display