Abstract: The present invention, generally speaking, provides a powerful yet easy to use electronic publishing tool for information providers and online service operators. The electronic publishing tool allows information providers to manage the content they provide to online services. It also reduces the effort required by operations staff of online services to support a growing number of information providers. Finally, the electronic publishing tool allows content to be captured from information providers (and, by extension, subscribers) so that it can be published onto a variety of platforms with minimal additional effort. For example information, in addition to or in lieu of being published on an online service, may be published on CD through a facility such as AppleLink CD (AppleLink CD allows a portion of the "static" content of an online service such as AppleLink to be published and distributed in CD form, with the result that the content is infinitely reusable without incurring connect charges.