List of document markup languages - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The following is a list of document markup languages. You may also find the List of markup languages of interest.

Well-known document markup languages

HyperText Markup Language
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....

(HTML) – the original markup language that was defined as a part of implementing World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...

, an ad hoc defined language inspired by the meta format SGML and which inspired many other markup languages.
Extensible HyperText Markup Language
XHTML
XHTML is a family of XML markup languages that mirror or extend versions of the widely-used Hypertext Markup Language , the language in which web pages are written....

(XHTML): HTML reformulated in XML syntax.
- XHTML Basic
  XHTML Basic
  XHTML Basic is an XML-based structured markup language primarily used for simple user agents, typically mobile devices.XHTML Basic is a subset of XHTML 1.1, defined using XHTML Modularization including a reduced set of modules for document structure, images, forms, basic tables, and object support...
  
  – a subset of XHTML for simple (typically mobile, handheld) devices. It is meant to replace WML, and C-HTML.
- XHTML Mobile Profile
  XHTML Mobile Profile
  XHTML Mobile Profile is a hypertextual computer language standard designed specifically for mobile phones and other resource-constrained devices....
  
  (XHTML MP) – a standard designed for mobile phones and other resource-constrained devices.
Mathematical Markup Language
MathML
Mathematical Markup Language is an application of XML for describing mathematical notations and capturing both its structure and content. It aims at integrating mathematical formulae into World Wide Web pages and other documents...

(MathML)
Rich Text Format
Rich Text Format
The Rich Text Format is a proprietary document file format with published specification developed by Microsoft Corporation since 1987 for Microsoft products and for cross-platform document interchange....

(RTF) – Microsoft format for exchanging documents with other vendors' applications. (It is not really a markup language, as it was never meant for intuitive and easy typing.)
Scalable Vector Graphics
Scalable Vector Graphics
Scalable Vector Graphics is a family of specifications of an XML-based file format for describing two-dimensional vector graphics, both static and dynamic . The SVG specification is an open standard that has been under development by the World Wide Web Consortium since 1999.SVG images and their...

(SVG)
TeX
TeX
TeX is a typesetting system designed and mostly written by Donald Knuth and released in 1978. Within the typesetting system, its name is formatted as ....

, LaTeX
LaTeX
LaTeX is a document markup language and document preparation system for the TeX typesetting program. Within the typesetting system, its name is styled as . The term LaTeX refers only to the language in which documents are written, not to the editor used to write those documents. In order to...

– a format for describing complex type and page layout often used for mathematics, technical, and academic publications.
Extensible 3D (X3D)

Metalanguages

Standard Generalized Markup Language
Standard Generalized Markup Language
The Standard Generalized Markup Language is an ISO-standard technology for defining generalized markup languages for documents...

(SGML) – a standard pattern for markup languages to which HTML
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....

and DocBook
DocBook
DocBook is a semantic markup language for technical documentation. It was originally intended for writing technical documents related to computer hardware and software but it can be used for any other sort of documentation....

adhere.
Extensible Markup Language
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....

(XML) – a newer standard pattern for markup languages; a restricted form of SGML that is intended to be compatible with it.

Lesser-known document markup languages

(including some lightweight markup language

Lightweight markup language

A lightweight markup language is a markup language with a simple syntax, designed to be easy for a human to enter with a simple text editor, and easy to read in its raw form....

Chemical Markup Language
Chemical Markup Language
CML is an approach to managing molecular information using tools such as XML and Java. It was the first domain specific implementation based strictly on XML, first based on a DTD and later on XML Schema, the most robust and widely used system for precise information management in many areas...

(CML)
Compact HyperText Markup Language
C-HTML
C-HTML , also called i-mode-HTML, is a subset of HTML for small information devices, such as first generation smart phones and PDAs, such as DoCoMo's i-mode mobile phones used in Japan...

(C-HTML) – used for some mobile phones.
ConTeXt
ConTeXt
ConTeXt is a general-purpose document processor. It is especially suited for structured documents, automated document production, very fine typography, and multi-lingual typesetting. It is based in part on the TeX typesetting system, and uses a document markup language for manuscript preparation...

– a modular, structured formatting language based on TeX.
Crossmark
Crossmark
Crossmark is a flexible, lightweight textual markup language, based on the earlier Markdown language. It has a syntax similar to Wiki and support...

– common markup with macros.
Darwin Information Typing Architecture
Darwin Information Typing Architecture
The Darwin Information Typing Architecture is an OASIS standard XML data model for authoring and publishing. Many third party tools support authoring, including Adobe FrameMaker, XMetaL, Arbortext, Quark XML Author, Oxygen XML Editor, easyDITA, and SDL Xopus...

(DITA)
DocBook
DocBook
DocBook is a semantic markup language for technical documentation. It was originally intended for writing technical documents related to computer hardware and software but it can be used for any other sort of documentation....

– format for technical (but not only) manuals and documentation.
eLML
ELML
The eLesson Markup Language is an open source XML framework for creating electronic lessons. It is a "spin-off" from the GITTA project , a Swiss GIS eLearning project, and was launched in spring 2004. The eLML project is hosted at Sourceforge and offers all the regular tools that you might...

– eLesson Markup Language: create eLearning content
Encoded Archival Description
Encoded Archival Description
Encoded Archival Description is an XML standard for encoding archival finding aids, maintained by the Library of Congress in partnership with the Society of American Archivists.-History:EAD originated in 1993, at the University of California, Berkeley...

(EAD)
Enriched text
Enriched text
Enriched text is a formatted text format for e-mail, defined by the IETF in RFC 1896 and associated with the text/enriched MIME type. It is "intended to facilitate the wider interoperation of simple enriched text across a wide variety of hardware and software platforms". Today, enriched text is...

– for formatting e-mail text.
Generalized Markup Language (GML)
Guide Markup Language
GuideML
GuideML is a document markup language used on h2g2, and other bbc.co.uk communities that use the same "DNA" software.GuideML is an application of XML standards. It mostly consists of a safe subset of XHTML with some extra tags for specific features of the software...

(GuideML) – used by the Hitchhiker's Guide site.
Handheld Device Markup Language
Handheld Device Markup Language
The Handheld Device Markup Language is a markup language intended for display on handheld computers, information appliances, smartphones, etc.. It is similar to HTML, but for wireless and handheld devices with small displays, like PDA, mobile phones and so on.It was originally developed in about...

(HDML) – designed for smartphones and handheld computers.
Help Markup Language (HelpML)
Hypermedia/Time-based Structuring Language
HyTime
HyTime is a markup language that is an "application" of SGML. HyTime defines a set of hypertext-oriented element types that, in effect, supplement SGML and allow SGML document authors to build hypertext and multimedia presentations in a standardized way.HyTime is an international standard...

(HyTime)
HyperTeX – for including hyperlinks in TeX (and LaTeX) documents.
Information Presentation Facility
Information Presentation Facility
Information Presentation Facility is a system for presenting online help and hypertext on IBM OS/2 systems. IPF also refers to the markup language that is used to create IPF content. The IPF language has its origins in BookMaster and Generalized Markup Language developed by IBM...

(IPF) – is a system for presenting online help and hypertext on IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

OS/2
OS/2
OS/2 is a computer operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively. The name stands for "Operating System/2," because it was introduced as part of the same generation change release as IBM's "Personal System/2 " line of second-generation personal...

systems. It is also the default help file format used by the cross-platform fpGUI Toolkit
FpGUI
fpGUI, the Free Pascal GUI toolkit, is a cross-platform graphical user interface toolkit developed by Graeme Geldenhuys. fpGUI is open source and free software, licensed under a Modified LGPL license...

project.
LilyPond – a system for music notation.
LinuxDoc
LinuxDoc
LinuxDoc is an SGML DTD which is similar to DocBook. It was created by Matt Welsh and version 1.1 was announced in 1994. It is primarily used by the Linux Documentation Project. The DocBook SGML tags are often longer than the equivalent LinuxDoc tags...

– used by the Linux Documentation Project.
Lout – a document formatting functional programming language, similar in style to LaTeX.
Mail Markup Language (MML) - a markup language for describing and structuring email headers and content.
Maker Interchange Format
Maker Interchange Format
Maker Interchange Format is a proprietary markup language associated with Adobe Systems' FrameMaker product for technical document preparation....

(MIF)
Markdown
Markdown
Markdown is a lightweight markup language, originally created by John Gruber and Aaron Swartz allowing people "to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML "...

- simple plaintext markup popular as language of blog/cms posts and comments, multiple implementations, used to generate HTML.
Microsoft Assistance Markup Language
Microsoft Assistance Markup Language
Microsoft Assistance Markup Language is an XML-based markup language developed by the Microsoft User Assistance Platform team to provide user assistance for the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system. It is somewhat of a departure from all previous types of user assistance for Windows operating...

(MAML)
Music Encoding Initiative
Music Encoding Initiative
The Music Encoding Initiative is a community-driven effort to create a commonly accepted, digital, symbolic representation of music notation documents.-External links:* * * *...

(MEI)
Music Extensible Markup Language
MusicXML
MusicXML is an open, XML-based music notation file format.It was developed by Recordare LLC, deriving several key concepts from existing academic formats . It is designed for the interchange of scores, particularly between different scorewriters.Version 1.0 was released in January 2004...

(MusicXML)
Open Mathematical Documents
OMDoc
OMDoc is a semantic markup format for mathematical documents. While MathML only covers mathematical formulae and the related OpenMath standard only supports formulae and “content dictionaries” containing definitions of the symbols used in formulae, OMDoc covers the whole range of written...

(OMDoc)
OpenMath
OpenMath
OpenMath is the name of a markup language for specifying the meaning of mathematical formulae. Among other things, it can be used to complement MathML, a standard which mainly focuses on the presentation of formulae, with information about their semantic meaning...

– a markup language for mathematical formulae which can complement MathML.
Plain Old Documentation
Plain Old Documentation
Plain Old Documentation, abbreviated pod, is a lightweight markup language used to document the Perl programming language.-Design:pod is designed to be a simple, clean language with just enough syntax to be useful. It purposefully does not include mechanisms for fonts, images, colors or tables...

(POD) – a simple, platform-independent documentation tool for Perl
Perl
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...

.
Remote Telescope Markup Language
Remote Telescope Markup Language
The Remote Telescope Markup Language is an XML dialect for controlling remote and/or robotic telescopes.It was created by UC Berkeley's Hands-On Universe project in 1999.-External links:* http://hou.lbl.gov/rtml/...

(RTML)
reStructuredText
ReStructuredText
reStructuredText is a lightweight markup language intended to be highly readable in source format. Its formal name indicates that it is a "revised, reworked, and reinterpreted StructuredText."...

(reSt) - plaintext platform-independent markup used as Python
Python (programming language)
Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...

libraries documentation tool, multiple output formats (HTML, LaTeX, ODT, EPUB, ...)
Retail Template Markup Language
RTML
RTML is a proprietary programming language used exclusively by Yahoo!'s Yahoo! Store and Yahoo! Site web hosting services.-History:...

(RTML) – e-commerce language which is based on LisP.
Revisable-Form Text
Revisable-Form Text
Revisable-Form Text is part of IBM's Document Content Architecture . It is sometimes referred to as Revisable Format Text...

(RFT) – part of IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

's Document Content Architecture to allow transfer of formatted documents to other systems.
S1000D
S1000D
S1000D is an international specification for the procurement and production of technical publications. It is an XML specification for preparing, managing, and using equipment maintenance and operations information. It was initially developed by the for use with military aircraft...

– international specification for technical documentation related to commercial or military; aerospace, sea or land; vehicles or equipment.
Scribe
Scribe (markup language)
Scribe is a markup language and word processing system which pioneered the use of descriptive markup. Scribe was revolutionary when it was proposed, because it involved for the first time a clean separation of structure and format.-Beginnings:...

– Brian Reid's seminal markup language
SKiCal - a machine-readable format for the interchange of enhanced yellow-page directory listings.
Struxt
Struxt
Struxt is a human-readable data format designed to be structurally equivalent to XML yet representationally similar to C-style programming languages.'Struxt stands for "Structured Text".- Features :...

- a C-style equivalent to XML.
Text Encoding Initiative
Text Encoding Initiative
The Text Encoding Initiative is a text-centric community of practice in the academic field of digital humanities. The community runs a mailing list, meetings and conference series, and maintains a technical standard, a wiki and a toolset....

(TEI) – Guidelines for text encoding in the humanities, social sciences and linguistics.
Texinfo
Texinfo
Texinfo is a typesetting syntax used for generating documentation in both on-line and printed form with a single source file...

– GNU documentation format.
troff
Troff
troff is a document processing system developed by AT&T for the Unix operating system.-History:troff can trace its origins back to a text formatting program called RUNOFF, written by Jerome H. Saltzer for MIT's CTSS operating system in the mid-1960s...

(typesetter runoff), groff
Groff (software)
Groff is the GNU replacement for the troff and nroff text formatters. It is an original implementation written primarily in C++ by James Clark and is modeled after ditroff, including many extensions. The first version, 0.3.1, was released June 1990. The first stable version, 1.04, was announced in...

(GNU runoff)
Wikitext
Wikitext
Wikitext language, or wiki markup, is a lightweight markup language used to write pages in wiki websites, such as Wikipedia, and is a simplified alternative/intermediate to HTML. Its ultimate purpose is to be converted by wiki software into HTML, which in turn is served to web browsers.There is no...

– used in Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...

, MediaWiki
MediaWiki
MediaWiki is a popular free web-based wiki software application. Developed by the Wikimedia Foundation, it is used to run all of its projects, including Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wikinews. Numerous other wikis around the world also use it to power their websites...

and other Wiki installations.
Wireless Markup Language
Wireless Markup Language
Wireless Markup Language , based on XML, is a markup language intended for devices that implement the Wireless Application Protocol specification, such as mobile phones. It provides navigational support, data input, hyperlinks, text and image presentation, and forms, much like HTML...

(WML), Wireless TV Markup Language
WapTV
WapTV was the name given to the company which originated the WTVML as a content format for the delivery of Interactive TV applications using Internet Servers...

(WTVML)
Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) XML based user interface markup language
Z Format
Z Format
The Z format is an open, and freely available document and typesetting language, coded by David H. Kristensen and Dan Ponte from the Z Initiative....

– an open, document and typesetting language inspired by TeX.

Office document markup languages

Compound Document Format
Compound Document Format
Compound Document Format is a set of W3C candidate standards describing electronic document file formats that contains multiple formats, such as SVG, XHTML, SMIL and XForms....
Office Open XML (OOXML) – open standard format for office documents:
- SpreadsheetML
  SpreadsheetML
  SpreadsheetML is the XML schema for Microsoft Office Excel 2003.The Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas are included in the Microsoft Open Specification Promise, a legal statement concerning unrestricted use of Microsoft intellectual property.-External links:...
  
  – spreadsheet language, part of Office Open XML.
- PresentationML – presentations language, part of Office Open XML.
- WordprocessingML wordprocessing language, part of Office Open XML.
- Microsoft Office 2003 XML formats, predecessor of Office Open XML.
OpenDocument
OpenDocument
The Open Document Format for Office Applications is an XML-based file format for representing electronic documents such as spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents....

(ODF) – open standard format for office documents.
- OpenOffice.org XML
  OpenOffice.org XML
  OpenOffice.org XML is an open XML-based file format developed as an open community effort by Sun Microsystems and other OpenOffice.org project contributors in 2000-2002. The open-source software application suite OpenOffice.org 1.x and StarOffice 6 used the format as their native and default file...
  
  – predecessor of OpenDocument.
ReportML – Report format language originating from Microsoft Access
Microsoft Access
Microsoft Office Access, previously known as Microsoft Access, is a relational database management system from Microsoft that combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software-development tools. It is a member of the Microsoft Office suite of...

. (not a part of Office Open XML (yet))
Uniform Office Format
Uniform Office Format
Uniform Office Format sometimes known as Unified Office Format is an open standard for 'office' applications developed in China. It includes word processing, presentation, and spreadsheet modules, and is made up of GUI, API, and format specifications...

(UOF) – open format for office documents, being harmonised with OpenDocument.

Well-known document markup languages

Metalanguages

Lesser-known document markup languages

Office document markup languages

See also