MD*Book online: A tool for creating interactive documents

Since the age of Gutenberg, publishing has meant to print a book readable by a person. Of course, interaction and dynamic illustration were not possible with this media. Even during the electronic age (till the mid of the nineties), publishing had not changed much. Although media, like diskettes and CDs, were often added to books, they often contained only additional material, e.g., lengthy computer programs. With the breakthrough of the internet and the World Wide Web, the publishing of books has changed dramatically. Authors provide, beside the printed text, an electronic version of the book on the internet and on a CD. Interactive examples are sometimes embedded in books. Authoring systems appeared on the market, but their use usually they requires special knowledge of the programs. Moreover, the interactivity and the dynamics often depends on the authoring system and not on the author of a book. We first define what we mean by an e-book and explain our choice of the document base. Since the MD*Book project bundles and extends techniques developed over the last several years, we consider the main roots of it: the XploRe helpsystem (APSS), the Golden Solution, and the MM*Stat project. Finally we describe MD*Book and the MD*Book online project. Please find at the end the internet addresses.