[XSL-LIST Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

Re: Converting from Framemaker to XML

Subject: Re: Converting from Framemaker to XML
From: "Deborah Pickett" <debbiep-list-xsl@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2007 16:35:26 +1000 (EST)
Re:  Converting from Framemaker to XML
On Thu, April 26, 2007 23:28, Lech Rzedzicki wrote:
> Much of the data that I work on is .fm format (unstructured
> Framemaker) and I am investigating various methods of converting that
> to XML with the least amount of manual labour, while keeping most of
> the formatting.

I second what others have said: this is worth doing, once, to migrate your
FrameMaker documents into XML.  It's not something that you will want to
do frequently.

> But what I'm looking for is simplicity and automation.

That depends entirely on how well-structured your FrameMaker document is. 
You said it was Unstructured (i.e., not EDD'd) but does it at least use
consistent named styles ("formats" in FrameMaker speak)?  Are the sections
titles and nested consistently?  Do you rely heavily on presentation items
like separate text flows?

You might be able to develop a workflow whereby you convert the
Unstructured documents into Structured FrameMaker (scariness factor 2.5),
associate it with an EDD, and save it as XML.  Because the "Add Structure"
feature in FrameMaker has limitations, you will have to do more XSLT
afterwards to get anything useful (scariness factor 1.8).  All of this
could, theoretically, be automated, if you trust the consistency of your
input documents.

But you probably won't find any free tools to do it, sorry.  FrameMaker
documents differ so much that the Add Structure process has to be
hand-rolled to your particular format.  Then there's the matter of what
you want the XML to look like.  In short, even if you did find someone
else who has done this (I'm one of them) their converters would be almost
useless for you without a lot of customization.

Some things will not convert at all, unless you go digging in MIF (don't,
if  you value your sanity): internal cross-references can get munged;
table formats such as shading are inaccessible; anchored frames containing
text are separate flows and won't survive conversion.

Consultants exist for you to outsource this kind of migration to; I'm not
one of them, but I have met some, and in hindsight I probably should have
used one when I hit this problem.  Though I will say that I learned a ton
of  XSLT in the process.

Current Thread

PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!

Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced!

Buy Stylus Studio Now

Download The World's Best XML IDE!

Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today!

Don't miss another message! Subscribe to this list today.
Email
First Name
Last Name
Company
Subscribe in XML format
RSS 2.0
Atom 0.3
Site Map | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Trademarks
Free Stylus Studio XML Training:
W3C Member
Stylus Studio® and DataDirect XQuery ™are products from DataDirect Technologies, is a registered trademark of Progress Software Corporation, in the U.S. and other countries. © 2004-2013 All Rights Reserved.