Denmark’s DJØF Publishing replaces Inera’s eXtyles with Intelligent Content Tools (icTools) to modernize publishing workflows

SITUATION

DJØF Publishing is a leading publishing group based in Denmark, specializing in the publication of legal literature across journals and books. With a strong focus on providing high-quality legal content, DJØF Publishing releases more than 100 legal book titles and articles for different legal journals annually. In addition to legal literature, they also publish books on leadership for organization and societies.

Their legal content is published both in print and digital formats and is primarily distributed by the subscription services from Jurabibliotek.dk, which is Denmark's largest online legal library. DJØF Publishing serves a wide range of audiences via this platform including university students, professional education programs and legal practitioners seeking professional guidance and insights.

To publish content online, DJØF Publishing conducted research and identified that delivering content in XML format would be necessary to ensure stable, structured, and validated digital content. To meet the technical requirements of digital publishing, they determined that their journals needed to be formatted in JATS XML, while their books required BITS XML for proper structuring.

Hence, in 2018, DJØF Publishing found a solution from a company called Inera. They started utilizing Inera's Word plugin called “eXtyles,” which enabled them to convert Microsoft Word manuscripts into JATS XML for journals and BITS XML for books. Given that their content is primarily authored and formatted in Microsoft Word.

However, in 2024, Wiley Partner Solutions—which acquired Inera in 2019—announced that they would be discontinuing the development and external support for all eXtyles products by mid-2026. This decision prompted DJØF Publishing to seek an alternative solution to replace eXtyles and ensure the continued seamless production and digital distribution of their legal publications.

SOLUTION

DJØF Publishing’s initial objective was simply to replace eXtyles on a one-to-one basis. They started researching and found a software solution from Ictect called Intelligent Content Tools (icTools), which is a Word plugin that not only replaced the Inera’s eXtyles but provided a well-structured way to modernize their existing publishing workflows and make their work with XML content easier, faster, and more streamlined than before.

Thomas Lottrup, Digital Content Specialist for DJØF Publishing said: “With eXtyles, we first had to post-process the manuscript to remove markup that prevented XML export. Then we had to export the content to an XML file outside of Word and open it up an XML editor. If there were errors in the XML output due to markup errors in Word, we often received imprecise error messages, making it cumbersome and time-consuming to locate and correct errors in Word before we could attempt to export to XML again and again.”

With icTools, their experience is entirely different. The XML structure is generated and displayed in a side panel within Word. In this structure panel, any markup errors in the document are highlighted. When clicking on the error location in the XML structure panel, icTools synchronizes to the location of the error in the Word content for easy fixing. No more guesswork!

Furthermore, they no longer need to post-process the print-ready Word manuscript to generate XML. Whereas previously they worked with one Word file for print and another post-processed version of that for XML export, they now use a single file that can be exported to both Adobe Distiller PDF for print and XML for online use.

Ictect is pleased to have provided DJØF Publishing with their patented Intelligent Content software. This user-friendly software allows them to effortlessly transform Word manuscripts to JATS and BITS XML formats, but it also modernizes their workflow by removing unnecessary XML products and making documents checking easier.