This paper focuses on real-world case studies, showing how Fortune 500 companies have dramatically reduced localization and desktop publishing (DTP) costs with the implementation of XML-based technology. These solutions were designed to address the following problem areas related to localization:

- Inability to determine changes to content between localization cycles

- Requirement to publish localized content to multiple media types (e.g., paper, web, CD-ROM)

- Reliance on Translation Memory tools to keep track of previously localized content

- Excessively high DTP and labor costs for publishing "difficult" languages (e.g., Asian languages, Hebrew, Arabic)

The paper outlines and demonstrates how technologies based on XML and XSL enabled these companies to address these issues in a way that conforms to industry standards, to ensure flexibility and longevity of the solution. Detailed descriptions are described to show how XML-based technologies addressed the above issues in the following ways:

- Storing content in reusable XML fragments to allow for data sharing and elimination of redundant storage and multiple translations of the same information

- Storing content in a format-neutral paradigm to enable true "single source" authoring, with automatic publishing to multiple output types

- Linking mechanisms to allow for better synchronization of content with translation memory, multimedia files, and other related information types

- XSL formatting tools to automate the transformation of localized content for publishing to PDF, HTML, and other delivery formats