Decades ago, I lost count of the number of times I heard a comment to the effect that "you wouldnt use structure to write a letter to your mother." Well, if my mother were still around, I certainly would.
Of course there is a lot of dependency on the nature of the content being edited, but a well-designed structure let's the writer concentrate on the logic of the material rather than how it looks. Formatting is a side effect. Let me give you a few examples:
1. Suppose your document contains numbered lists, with the first item resetting the counter to 1 and other items incrementing the counter. In an unstructured document, you'd typically have two paragraph formats, one to initialize the counter and one to increment. To reverse the order of the first two items, a writer must move one or the other and retag them both. In a structured document, the writer simply drags one to the new location and their autonumbers are both automatically changed. The automation is possible because the objects the writer uses include the entire list as well as its items. The rules that control the formatting can specify something that happens for the first (or last) item in a list as well as to all items.
2. Suppose you use italics for foreign phrases and bold for emphasis. In an unstrutured document, you might have a character format called Foreign and another called Emphasis. If you apply both character formats and the properties defined for each are applied, but the character text is that of the last applied. If you decide to switch from bold to red, you might have to search for bold text rather than a character tag. Of course, the task is more time consuming if you also use bold for part numbers and product names. In a structured document, you can have a Foreign element inside an Emphasis element or the other way around. The rules for formatting either or both can be changed as the organization's style sheet evolves. It's even possible for different formatting properties to be set in different contexts (within a title, say, or a table cell).
3. Suppose you have a document with a bulleted list that is 20 or 30 pages long. You want to change it from a bulleted list to a numbered list. If the document is instructured, you have to find the first item (or the last item) and either drag to the other end, or shift-click on the item at that end. Once you have the entire list selected, you can apply the paragraph format for numbered items, remembering to use that specical format for the first one. And if many of the items have sublists, you'll either have to go item by item instead, or retag the items in every sublist as well. In a structured document, you don't have to see both ends. In fact you don't have to see either end. Simply click in one item and then extend the selection to the element containing the current element, that is, extend the selection from the item to the list.And then change the type of list. All items are changed; sublists are preserved.
4. Suppose you are writing user manuals for household appliances. Every manual has the same sections in a required order: Safety Information, Installation, Use, Care, Troubleshooting. That order can be build into the structure rules. A new writer doesn't have to memorize it. And because the headings are fixed, their text can be automatically generated with no risk of typos.
I once heard a presentation in which the speaker explained that when his son was in 2nd grade, he talked about his homework in terms of chapters and sections. By the time he was in 5th grade he explained that his assignment was to start reading from the 2nd level heading on page 82. We do two things with written material; format it and work with the information it contains. Structured documents let you create nested logical chunks and the formatting is automatic based on the contexts in which those chunks (called elements) occur.
--Lynne
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