TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: SGML to MS Word Conversion (#312845) From:Bill Burns <wburns -at- MICRON -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 28 Aug 1996 08:28:41 MDT
28-AUG-1996 07:21:06.62
Sarah writes:
>If there is indeed such an animal as a conversion utility that'll take SGML
>into Word, I'd _love_ to hear about it. However, I've been working with
>SGML since shortly after its inception in 1988 and haven't encountered
>anything like this. YMMV.
Okay, I'm confused. I've been doing research on SGML for seveal months, and I
had the impression that this translation was a simple one. If the whole point of
SGML is to provide one source and multiple output, and you can translate SGML
into other proprietary formats, why couldn't you translate it into Word? As I
understand, the Rainbow DTD allows just this sort of translation capability, and
it's a public domain DTD.
In Travis and Waldt's *The SGML Implementation Style Guide*, the authors mention
considering the use of Word as their "composition engine" after tagging their
data. They eventually chose to use Venture Publisher because it better suited
the needs they had for the book design (p. 403). So apparently, the feat is
possible and uncommon.
Here's a URL for more information on SGML formatting and editing tools:
Here's another possible workaround. Numerous applications are designed to
created SGML on Word. If you can open the file in an SGML editor running on top
of Word (TagWizard by NICE Technologies), you may also be able to save to a Word
file. If you have a template in place that uses the same tags and defines the
layout accordingly, you should be able to make the conversion with few problems.
Bill Burns
Assembly Training and Documentation Supervisor
WBURNS -at- MICRON -dot- COM
TECHWR-L List Information
To send a message about technical communication to 2500+ list readers,
E-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot- Send administrative commands
ALL other questions or problems concerning the list
should go to the listowner, Eric Ray, at ejray -at- ionet -dot- net -dot-
