Semantically structured document

[David Sharp]

There something that's been bugging me ever since I started hearing about XML and other mark-up languages. If I could do it with Nisus Writer Pro, or an NWP macro, it would be great, but if that's not possible I'd appreciate pointers to other tools.

I'd like to be able to easlly introduce semantic tags into my documents and then exploit those tags, for example by extracting from a given document only the content relating to those tags, or certain combinations of the same.

My immediate example is a personal diary I've been keeping with Nisus Writer for around seven years now (No, I'm not planning to publish it on Facebook). Daily entries include musings on very diverse themes such as nature (birds, trees), work issues, grocery shopping, technology and love affairs. There's also a substantial "early days" section in which I gradually fill in events and musings from my past, often from old handwritten diaries.

I've taken care to always use the same formats for dates of entries, and to respect a simple stylesheet, but as the document grows longer and longer, I really need to structure it semantically. For example, to be able highlight all passages relating to a certain person, a certain theme or a certain type of bird. I'd like to be able do the same with all my writings.

As I ultimately want to be able to share my writings with others, I need any such system to comply with industry standards, and not just be personal to me. Indeed, it should be an aid to publication, either on the web or as a typeset document.

Can anyone point me to ways of doing this - or even to forums in which I could learn about the same?

Many thanks