A company announcement from Altova, Inc. describes the recent release of the XML Spy 4.2 Suite, "a comprehensive product-line of easy-to-use software tools, facilitating all aspects of advanced XML application development. The XML Spy 4.2 Suite consists of the Integrated Development Environment (IDE), the XSLT Designer, and the Document Editor, a comprehensive tool-set for all XML application development. XML Spy 4.2 Suite adds support for all of the newest XML Technologies, including Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) -- the foundation of all next-generation web-services applications. XML Spy 4.2 Suite also adds support for advanced Microsoft XML parser technologies (MSXML4). XML Spy 4.2 Suite is designed to maximize the productivity of today's software professionals by supporting all of the newest XML standards and technology platforms. XML Spy 4.2 Suite was pre-viewed last week at a keynote speech at the Oracle Open World Conference in San Francisco, highlighting XML Spy 4.2 Suite's authoring support for Oracle XML Schema Extensions."

From the product description:

XML Spy Document Editor empowers non-technical people to easily create and edit XML content through a user interface that closely resembles an easy-to-use word-processor.

Presenting the all-new XML Spy Document Editor -- an innovative new visual approach to writing XML documents without ever typing a single angle bracket. The XML Spy Document Editor is part of the new XML Spy Document Framework, an enterprise-wide content management solution for creating and deploying large volumes of XML content in real-world production environments such as web-publishing, knowledge management or e-commerce.

Using the XML Spy Document Editor, information gathered by employees across the company is immediately saved to an underlying XML format ensuring that valuable information is indeed valid and does not become lost or simply become un-usable. The XML content can be reused and repurposed for any reason at a later time.

The XML Spy Document Editor and Browser Plugin enable the use of content-rich electronic forms (e-Forms), realizing a key aspect of the paperless office. Once data is saved into an underlying XML format, automated agents can easily process the information resulting in far greater efficiencies and cost savings.

The XML Spy Document Editor supports word processor like free-flow WYSIWYG text editing, form-based data input, graphical elements, presentation and editing of arbitrary repeating XML elements as tables, real-time validation, and consistency checking using XML Schema.