Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The bird on the cover of XML in a Nutshell is a peafowl, the largest bird in the Phasianinae family, which also includes pheasants and turkeys. People often incorrectly call peafowl peacocks. Peacocks are actually male peafowl; the females are called peahen. Two wild peafowl species exist today: the Indian Peafowl (Pavo cristatus) and the Green Peafowl of Southeast Asia (Pavo muticus), which may be endangered. These wild peafowl live in musters of eight to twelve birds in dense forest near water. Though they do not fly very well, and do so only for shortdistances, they do manage to escape most predators, and roost peacefully at night, high up in treetops.

The peafowl's most famous characteristic, of course, is its beautiful fan of feathers, known as a "train." Each blue-green train feather has a dark spot on its tip that looks much like an eye. Peacocks develop especially brilliant plumage, an indicator ofsexual maturity, by age three. A healthy peacock has a full and vibrant train each year during the spring mating season. During this period, peacocks strut their stuff—display their "breeding plumage," as it is called—to attract peahen. Scientists theorize that the peacock's performance plays upon the peahen's instinctive drives to find healthy mates in the hope of producing hardy offspring. Each summer after the mating season, peafowl shed their train feathers, which are often collected by humans as eye-catching souvenirs. Ann Schirmer was the production editor and copyeditor for XML in a Nutshell. Norma Emory was the proofreader. Claire Cloutier, Linley Dolby, and Mary Sheehan provided quality control. Matt Hutchinson, Darren Kelly, Erin Mark, Catherine Morris, Deborah Smith, Gabe Weiss, and Rachel Wheeler provided production assistance. Judy Hoer wrote the index.

Ellie Volckhausen designed the cover of this book, based on a series design by Edie Freedman. The cover image is an original illustration by Susan Hart. Emma Colby produced the cover layout with QuarkXPress 4.1, using Adobe's ITC Garamond font.

David Futato designed the interior layout based on a series design by Nancy Priest. Mike Sierra implemented the design in FrameMaker 5.5.6. The text and heading fonts are ITC Garamond Light and Garamond Book. Cliff Dyer, Erik Ray, and Robert Romano provided support for special Unicode characters used in this book. The tables of Unicode characters in Chapter 23 were produced in Microsoft Word 2000 by David Futato. The illustrations that appear in the book were produced by Robert Romano using Macromedia FreeHand 8 and Adobe Photoshop 5. This colophon was written by Sarah Jane Shangraw and Molly Shangraw.