[4][5] XMetaL includes features common to word processors, such as a spellchecker, a thesaurus, and the ability to track changes made to documents.

[6][dead link‍] A “Resource Manager” pane can be used to locate and insert items such as image files and frequently reused text fragments.

Developers can also associate menu items and toolbar buttons for editing images, tables, and lists with elements and attributes in the particular DTD or XSD.

Through a macro facility, developers can add custom dialog boxes, menu commands, toolbar buttons, forms, and behaviors, using languages supported by the Microsoft scripting environment such as JScript and VBScript.

[8] XMAX, a platform for creating thin client custom XML editors, was first released in 2003 under the name “XMetaL for ActiveX”.