Re: Importing OpenOffice docs into Frame

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

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"Rick Quatro" <frameexpert@truevine.net> wrote on 10/15/2003 10:52:20 AM:
> What would be nice would be something that would transform a MIF file into
> well-formed XML and "MIFXML" back to MIF. Then you could use XSLT to
> transform XML to the intermediate "MIFXML" format.

From: <eric.dunn@ca.transport.bombardier.com>
> Shouldn't be too hard to make well formed XML from MIF. First step is to strip
> all the unneeded MIF information, then modify the MIF tagging to acceptable XML
> tag notation.

I've been thinking about this for some time. However, there is an additional
hurdle: MIF inheritance. Not all information pertaining to a MIF object is
always stored within that object's MIF snippet. If an object uses the same
settings as the previous object, the MIF specification permits you to omit
the "inherited" setting(s). I'm not sure to what degree FrameMaker itself
takes advantage of this when writing MIF, but I do know that the issue has
bitten me when I was developing MIF-editing scripts for UNIX.

If MIF inheritance is used in a MIF file, it would be difficult to handle
this in a MIF-to-XML conversion script...

To learn more about MIF inheritance, bring up the MIF Reference Manual and
search for "inherit". Here's an excerpt:
"When the interpreter reads a MIF file, it keeps track of the current state of
 certain objects. If the interpreter reads an object with properties that are not
 fully specified, it applies the current state to that object. When an object
 acquires the current state, it inherits the properties stored in that state.
 For example, if the line width is set to 1 point for a graphic object, the
 interpreter continues to use a 1-point line width for graphic objects until a
 new value is specified in the MIF file. Similarly, if the MIF file specifies
 a format for a paragraph, the interpreter uses the same format until a new
 format is specified in the file."


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Thomas Michanek, FrameMaker/UNIX/MIF expert
Technical Communicator, Uppsala, Sweden
mailto:Thomas.Michanek@telia.com
http://go.to/framers/
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