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Subject:Convert Paper Documentation to Web Format From:avobert -at- twh -dot- nbg -dot- de (Alexander Von_obert) To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com Date:12 May 00 18:43:00 +0000
Hello,
* Antwort auf eine Nachricht von juliajaj -at- hotmail -dot- com an All am 03.05.00
jj> I've tried to convert the docs from Word to
jj> FrontPage, but I end up losing some of the formatting.
if you go another way than PDF you _will_ lose _lots_ of formatting. BTW: Do
you really think that Frontpage is a tool for really big sites? I cannot
imagine to control any of my bigger sites with Frontpage - see http://www.tc-forum.org or http://www.techwriter.de (in German).
If your documents are available in a strictly controlled format like SGML you
might be able to convert them automatically and with a completely new layout.
Otherwise you must cope with the HTML conversion on a more or less
line-by-line basis. Winword uses completely different approaches than HTML.
And consider the differences between a page on paper and a computer screen:
Could your material be conveniently read on a screen?
There are tools like Schema Markup Kit (http://www.schema.de) that extract
pictures from Winword files and convert character and paragraph attributes to
a HTML or XML format you can define. But automatic conversion only works if
your conversion tool knows about all those little formatting errors the
authers made - regardless of ypur tool.
jj> We looked into converting the docs to PDF format, but
jj> there's an issue with file size & download time.
If your source format is Framemaker you could insert hypertext jumps into your
FM documents that appear in PDF. You can even jump into a PDF file so that not
the complete file must betransferred. But these are questions for a PDF guru.
Greetings from Germany,
Alexander
--
Alexander von Obert, Urbanstr. 2, 90480 Nuernberg, Germany
Free-lance technical writer (electronics, software)
Voice +49-911-403903, Fax -403904, BBS -403905 (FIDO 2:2490/1719)
avobert -at- techwriter -dot- de http://www.techwriter.de
