RE: converting Frame to down-level HTML

["Thomas Michanek" <thomas.michanek@xxxxxx>]

Last week I commented on a post made by Hedley Finger, concerning
whether HTML conversion tools can be used successfully by simply
using a mapping between FM formats and HTML tags.

After having communicating with a former co-worker of mine, I'd
like to clarify a few things I said:

> In 1999, I worked with a document set containing a very "free" layout,
> mixing several levels of numbered and bulleted lists with indented body
> paragraphs, and a few tables and graphics also thrown into the lists.
> We tried to use WebWorks Publisher (WWP) to map the paragraph tags to
> HTML formats, and it was absolutely impossible to get WWP to generate
> the correct indents/levels and list numbers!

Well, *I* didn't succeed in the conversion, but my co-worker did, by
using WWP macros. It's also possible that this is easier in later
versions of WWP by specifying an absolute "level" of lists. What I
tried to use was called "SmartLists" (I think), and it didn't work.

> By comparison, I also used a freeware FM-to-HTML converter on UNIX
> (fmtoweb) that I teached how to do this correctly. [...] Admittedly,
> I had to edit the Perl code of fmtoweb, but that was easy compared to
> trying to understand the macro language of WWP!

I wasn't trying to endorse fmtoweb. It's an old, unsupported freeware
that only run on UNIX, with severe limitations (for instance, it
cannot split FM files into multiple HTML files, and it cannot handle
double-byte characters). Using WWP macros may very well be just as
easy (or difficult) as programming Perl, depending on your background.

My initial impression of WWP was that such an expensive tool should
be able to convert formats correctly "out of the box", without the
need for writing macros.


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Thomas Michanek, Technical Writer
IAR Systems AB, Sweden: http://www.iar.com
mailto:Thomas.Michanek@iar.se
Tel: +46 18 167800, Fax: +46 18 167838
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