the actual paper content format should be separated from its rendering.
i.e. it should contain abstract, sections, equations, figures, citations etc. but it shouldn't have font sizes, layout etc.
the viewer platforms then should be able to style the content differently.
<div class="abstract-container">
<div class="abstract">
<pre><code> abstract text ... </code></pre>
</div>
<div class="author-list">
<ol>
<li>author one</li>
<li>author two</li>
<ol>
</div>
should be just:
[abstract]
abstract text
[authors]
author one | email | affiliation
author two | email | affiliation
But you could still use HTML. Elements with a dash in are reserved for custom elements (that is, a new standardised element will never take that name) so you could do:
<paper-author-list>
<paper-author />
</paper-author-list>
And it would be valid HTML. Then you’d style it with CSS, with paper-author {
display: list-item;
}
And so on.