# Which Fortran Library to Produce XML?

**URL:** <https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/which-fortran-library-to-produce-xml/351>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [October 17, 2020, 8:29pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/which-fortran-library-to-produce-xml/351 "2020-10-17T20:29:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Robert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e95f7d/32.png) [@Robert](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/Robert)\
**Post date:** [October 17, 2020, 8:29pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/which-fortran-library-to-produce-xml/351/1 "2020-10-17T20:29:46Z")

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Which Fortran library do you recommend for producing output in XML format?

I want my text output file to look more polished. I would like to have section headings in larger fonts, and colors. I would like to produce some of the output in tables with header rows and grid lines. And I want the ability to add a hyperlink based table of contents to the output.

Thank you for any advice you can give.

Regards,  
Bob

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**Author:** ![Robert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e95f7d/32.png) [@Robert](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/Robert)\
**Post date:** [October 17, 2020, 8:50pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/which-fortran-library-to-produce-xml/351/2 "2020-10-17T20:50:20Z")

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Or should I be looking at producing output in HTML? I don’t understand the difference between HTML and XML.

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**Author:** ![vmagnin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fortran-lang.discourse.group/vmagnin/32/28_2.png) [@vmagnin](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/vmagnin)\
**Post date:** [October 17, 2020, 8:57pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/which-fortran-library-to-produce-xml/351/3 "2020-10-17T20:57:09Z")

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Hi @Robert,  
from your first message you need HTML, not XML.  
HTML is a language for layout (HyperText Markup Language).  
XML is for storing structured data.

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**Author:** ![everythingfunctional](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fortran-lang.discourse.group/everythingfunctional/32/176_2.png) [@everythingfunctional](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/everythingfunctional)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2020, 3:11pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/which-fortran-library-to-produce-xml/351/4 "2020-10-19T15:11:40Z")

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Hi @Robert, it sounds like you can probably get away with just [Markdown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown), which is simpler, is human readable in it’s plain text form and has lots of tools for converting to various other formats including HTML, Word and others. I’m not aware of any Fortran libraries for producing output formatted that way, but it’s something that wouldn’t be difficult to hard code, and I wouldn’t worry too much about doing that unless you already see a need for having your output format be selectable at runtime.

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**Author:** ![Robert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e95f7d/32.png) [@Robert](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/Robert)\
**Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 1:32am UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/which-fortran-library-to-produce-xml/351/5 "2020-10-26T01:32:31Z")

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@vmagnin, @everythingfunctional, Thank you both for the information. It is very helpful.