MarkupUK 2025, although primarily related to XML, covers all forms of markup. We are looking forward to meeting you on June 5–7 2025 at King's College, London.
(From 2022, Markup UK and XML Prague are held in alternate years)
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The XML FAQ — Frequently-Asked Questions about the Extensible Markup Language
Section 1: Basics
Q 1.15: Where do I find more information about XML?
Online and offline resources
Adam Retter writes:
XML Slack Workspace
There's a new Slack Workspace for the XML Community announced with a link in an article on XML.com. This is a vendor independent workspace, hosted by Lauren Wood and XML.com, and equally open to XSLT, XQuery, XForms, or whatever X technology. (Thanks to Debbie Lapeyre for the pointer.)
Online, there's the XML Specification and the ancillary documentation available from the W3C; Robin Cover's XML Cover Pages with an extensive list of online reference material and links to software; and a summary and condensed FAQ from Tim Bray; and thousands of reference resources available by typing ‘xml’ into Google or other search engine.
For offline resources, see the lists of books, articles, and software for XML in Robin Cover's XML Cover Pages (articles and books). That site should always be your first port of call for archived resources.
For access to experts, particularly in consultancy and training, see the XML Guild, whose members form a consortium of some of the best independent XML consultants in the world.
The events listed below are the ones I have been told about. Please mail me if you come across others: there are many other XML events around the world, and most of them are announced at conferences, on Twitter, and on the mailing lists and newsgroups.
Conferences
This list covers conferences and meetings in the field of Markup, mainly XML but including some non-XML events in closely-related areas (eg LATEX, Markdown, etc).
Upcoming Markup - MarkupUK 2025
- Balisage 2025
Balisage is the premier conference on the theory, practice, design, development, and application of markup. We solicit papers on any aspect of markup and its uses, including XML, XSLT, xQuery, JSON, LATEX, Markdown, and many others. The conference will run from 4 to 8 August, and will be virtual again this year, so local watch-parties are encouraged.
- XML Summer School 2025
The XML Summer School runs at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, from Sunday 14th to Friday 19th September 2025. The week-long event is made up of courses which range from a primer in XML and a hands-on Introduction to more advanced topics like XForms in Action and XSLT and XQuery.
Type - DANTE 2025
The 66th annual spring meeting of the DANTE (German-speaking TEX Users Group) will take place at the Hochschule Darmstadt (https://www.dante.de/veranstaltungen/dante2025/) on 3–5 April 2025.
- BachoTEX 2025
In Bachotek, Poland, 30 April to 4 May 2025. For details see https://bachotex.gust.org.pl
The jubilee, thirtieth BachoTEX conference is dedicated to using TEX in and for education. Though TEX is known and used in Poland at academia, especially in STEM, for more than thirty years it still is a niche tool at lower levels of education. The aim of this year’s conference is to look at how TEX may be used to support education processes in different contexts: pupils at various levels, teachers, authors of curricula, school management or persons less obvious in this context such as carers of special interest groups and others involved in school’s life.
- TUG 2025
TUG 2025 will take place in Trivandrum, Kerala, India, hosted by TEXFolio (thank you!), from July 18–20 (Fri–Sun), 2025. Conference information and the registration form are now available: https://tug.org/tug2025/ The venue is the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Trivandrum: https://www.hyatt.com/hyatt-regency/en-US/trvrt-hyatt-regency-trivandrum.
The TUG bursary is available for those needing financial assistance to attend the conference: https://tug.org/bursary/.
A visa will be needed by most participants coming from outside India; it's advisable to start that process as soon as possible. The conference committee is happy to provide invitation letters and any other assistance; you can email us at tug2025@tug.org.
- ConTEXt 2025
The 19th International ConTEXt meeting will be held on August 22–29, 2025, in Chmielno, Poland.
HCI - Face/Interface 2025
Face/Interface 2025 will take place on January 17–18, 2025, at Stanford University. This conference is about global type design and human-computer interaction, and brings together scholars, designers, technologists, and more, of all levels of experience: https://silicon.stanford.edu/face-interface/. Several talks from the 2023 Face/Interface are available online: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbhkDo027WpAtTH4AJAORDwcRq2AktyS9.
Done and dusted Most recent first - Declarative Amsterdam 5
The sixth edition of Declarative Amsterdam will take place on 7 and 8 November 2024 at the Science Park, Amsterdam. It will be a hybrid conference with the opportunity to attend live or online, for both attendees and presenters.
Declarative techniques are a style of computing that expresses the purpose of computation without describing its control flow. It allows you to focus on the ‘what’, rather than the ‘how’.
- TEI Conference 2024
The Text Encoding Initiative represents the accepted standard XML format for literary and historical texts in the Humanities. The TEI 2024 Conference will be held in the Universidad del Salvador, Buenos Aires, Argentina from 7-11 October 2024. Pre-conference workshops will run on the 7-8 October, with the conference opening and running for the 9-11 October.
- XML Summer School 2024
The XML Summer School runs at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, from Sunday 15th to Friday 20th September 2024. The week-long event is made up of courses which range from the basics of XML to advanced topics in linked data, web design, and publishing.
- ConTEXt 2024
The 18th International ConTEXt meeting will be held on August 17–23, 2024, in Lutten/Hardenberg, The Netherlands.
- Balisage 2024
Balisage is the premier conference on the theory, practice, design, development, and application of markup. We solicit papers on any aspect of markup and its uses, including XML, XSLT, xQuery, JSON, LATEX, Markdown, and many others (paper submissions due 5 April 2024). The conference will run from 29 July to 2 August, and will be virtual again this year, so local watch-parties are encouraged.
- TUG 2024
Following the very successful online meetings of past years, the TEX Users Group 2024 meeting will take place at the Hotel Grandior in Prague (Czech Republic) on July 19–21, with Tom Hejda leading the local organization. Full details are at http://tug.org/tug2024. There will be a LaTeX developers' workshop on July 18; the topics will be around tagged and accessible PDF, as with last year.
- XML Prague 2024
XML Prague 2024 will take place 6–8 June 2024 in the University of Economics, nam. W. Churchilla 4, 130 67 Prague 3, Czech Republic.
Markup UK and XML Prague are held in alternate years, at this year it’s XML Prague’s turn. We are looking forward to meeting you in June 2024 in Prague and in 2025 in London.
- Annual conference of the Association of European Printing Museums 2024
“Printing Museums and the Arts of Survival” – from 23rd to 25th May 2024 the TYPA centre in Tartu, Estonia is hosting the annual conference of the Association of European Printing Museums (AEPM) which brings together print museums, print artists, researchers and enthusiasts from across Europe and on a global scale. Over three days conversations, lessons and exchanges will contribute to the active survival and exchange of knowledge in the field of graphic heritage. https://www.aepm.eu/aepm-2024/
- GuIT 2024
Annual meeting of the Gruppo Utilizzatori Italiani di TeX (Italian language TeX Users Group) in Brescia, Italy, 4 May 2024. For details see https://www.guitex.org/home/en/meeting;
- BachoTEX 2024
In Bachotek, Poland, 1–5 May 2024. For details see https://www.gust.org.pl/bachotex/2024-en;
- DANTE 2024
The 65th annual spring meeting of the DANTE (German-speaking TEX Users Group) will take place in Ilmtal-Weinstrasse (https://www.dante.de/veranstaltungen/dante2024/) on 4–6 April 2024.
- Typefi Pacific User Group 2024
Typefi is hosting a free virtual event on 28 February at 1pm AEST for those in Pacific time zones. Visit the Typefi website to register.
- DITA Europe 2024
DITA Europe takes place in Helsinki, Finland on 12–13 February preceded by a DITA Open Toolkit day on the 11th. Register and more information at https://ditaeurope.infomanagementcenter.com.
Training
This list covers training events and resources in the field of Markup, mainly XML but including some non-XML events in closely-related areas (eg LATEX, Markdown, etc).
- Character and higher-level encoding
The Sanskrit Library offers a course, “UT102. Character and higher-level encoding.” A prerequisite is advanced competency in Sanskrit, fluency reading Devanagari script, and regular access to a computer and basic computer use skills. Date and time: 9–11am US Central time, 20 January – 4 May 2024, except 23 March. See https://sanskritlibrary.org/courses/ut102.html.
- The Complete XML Developer
The Complete XML Developer runs from 26 February to 1st March and covers XPath, XSLT, XQuery, and XML Databases. It is taught in-person, and attendees will follow a hands-on approach to ultimately develop a complete XML Application over the course of the week. The full course outline is available at https://evolvedbinary.com/training/the-complete-xml-developer_training-course-outline.pdf and the sessions are held at the Wellcome Collection, Euston Road, London.
- Delightful Computing
Courses are live but online, or can be on site for a course with a venue available and at least six participants.
XSLT: Two to Three - three intense days covering the differences in XPath and XSLT since version 2. Now includes some notes on XSLT 4.
XSLT Booster - for people who have used XSLT 1 but not 2, or who are rusty on XSLT 2, this gives a one-day or half-day step up.
CSS for XML People - three days, topics include CSS for Print, CSS for Web, Web accessibility, and more.
Custom (bespoke) courses, e.g. introductions to DocBook or to XSLT, can be half-day up to a full week.
Discounts for advance booking, for more than three people from the same organisation, and yes, barefoot discount, since people always ask for it! on request.
- XML for Humanists
Consulting and training in XML technologies for digital humanists and librarians. Events can be scheduled on request to David Maus at Digital Humanities Publishing https://dmaus.name.