Why Is XML the Most Preferred Data Conversion Language?

EPublishing

7 minute read

Businesses are always on the lookout for innovative ways to store, organize, and manage crucial information. Apart from that, high-quality data conversion has also become a huge necessity. To ensure that all these needs are met all in one place, there’s a data conversion language you can use, called XML.

XML is used by countless business organizations for data conversion and management. It can create systematic formats that can help with structuring documents in an easy-to-read manner. Besides, these are not only reasons why it is considered to be versatile. To learn what they are, keep reading the article.

In this article, we’ll talk about what XML is, the advantages of XML conversion, and the reasons which make it a preferred data conversion language.

Introduction to XML

XML or Extensible Markup Language is a text-based markup language. It is derived from SGML, which stands for Standard Generalized Markup Language, and is mainly used to distribute information on the internet. It is one of the best languages to create formats like Atom, XHTML, SOAP, RSS, etc.

Here are the three main characteristics of XML.

  • It is extensible and can help you to create self-descriptive tags. You can also create language suiting your application.
  • It was developed by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and is an open standard, thereby available for public use.
  • It not only focuses on the displaying of information but also helps to store and organize it.

Advantages of XML Conversion for Business

XML has greatly improved the way businesses store, use, and share information. Since businesses often face the challenge of managing loads of information, XML conversion helps a lot in easing up the workload.

Here are a few other ways how XML conversion helps businesses.

  • Is economical

    This schema-driven language doesn’t need programming, which means you get to save money on coding. Also, you can easily your XML data on the web.

  • Improves productivity

    As the information will be properly organized, you can easily find documents and carry out your work. It will save the time you would have otherwise spent on searching and focus more on work.

  • Provides cross-browser capabilities

    The XML-converted documents have better cross-browser capabilities. Therefore, more people can access the documents, which can further lead to improving the experience of your business prospects.

  • Is easy to handle

    XML formats are easier to handle because of their flexible, adaptable, and scalable nature. Besides, you can also customize the documents as per your requirements.

  • Enhances search engine optimization

    XML can help your data look organized. This will also help search engine bots to index your data and present your users in a readable format.

Top 7 Reasons why XML is a Favorable Data Conversion Language

Below are the 7 features which make it a favorable language for data conversion.

  1. Separate Content and Display Data

    During XML conversion, the information is stored in separate XML files. This can separate the content from the HTML or CSS data, which are often used for layout and display.

    So, since the content will be segregated from the data presentation, you can use XML style sheets to manage the style and display of the content. In short, you can modify the display of a webpage or document without even touching the content part.

  2. Content Modification

    When you have separate files for storing information, the content modification also becomes easier. If you need to modify any data in the file, you can do it by making changes in the HTML code.

    However, when it comes to HTML, you need to put extra effort into displaying dynamic data. It means each time you need to make a change in the document, you‘ll have to change the display data as well.

  3. Custom Tag

    Unlike HTML, it doesn’t offer fixed tag or tag semantics. It is extensible and allows users the option to define custom tags and new elements. Besides, it can also allow them to decide the order of occurrence, display, etc. as per their requirements.

  4. Data Access

    With XML, you can access data from XML data sources as well as HTML pages. You also get access from various applications operating on multiple platforms, like news feed, handheld computers, and even devices that are used by blind people.

  5. Interactivity

    XML documents are interactive. It supports a wide range of multimedia elements, such as images, audio, videos, and more.

    Aside from this, you can also include active components in the files such as Java applets or ActiveX. This feature greatly helps publishers to convert their interactive eBooks into XML.

  6. Reusability

    HTML usually tends to process documents for web display. However, XML can process documents for a variety of contexts in an easy and cost-effective manner. Apart from that, it can also perform additional tasks like translating the web pages to multiple languages.

    Furthermore, XML data is available in text format, which is another great feature enabling easy upgrading and migration to different systems. Coming to the reusability part, you can use the same data in new systems, thereby saving time and cost on data conversions. This also reduces the chances of data loss due to incompatibility.

Conclusion

Even though XML is not the only data conversion language available, it is still considered to be the most preferred one because of its dynamic features. Due to this, many organizations opt for XML conversion services to convert their data for varied purposes.

So, if you’ve also decided to collaborate with a company for the same, you can trust our document conversion services. We are an experienced company offering digital conversion services for years and have assisted many clients with their data conversion projects. If you wish to know more about how we can help, kindly reach us!