Re: Turning Over a New Interleaf

[Robert Plamondon <robert -at- PLAMONDON -dot- COM>]

>Ron Sering writes:

>Are there some better ways to do this, such as:

>1) Define a custom filter that reads the fonts coming in from Winword and
>applies component attributes to  them selectively, by font.

>2) Purchase scripts from Interleaf or other vendors to do this chore?

>--Or are there tips and tricks that I'm missing?

There's much you can do with up-front organization.  Since styles/components
are retained by the filters (in both directions), you can export your
Offical Tech Pubs Interleaf Template(TM) to Word, gussy it up, and show
the engineers how to use it.  Most people are quite happy to use styles
once they know that they exist, because they are easy to use and look
nice.  That way your input files would be much more similar to what
you're looking for.

Word's own formatting wizard may be able to do an adequate pre-formatting
job.  This routine (which I have never used) takes text in which no
styles have been used and applies each paragraph to the closest style.
Or something.  I don't know how programmable it is, but it's worth a
shot.

Those are the two fundamental tricks.  There's probably a lot more that
can be done.  Call me if you're interested -- I do this sort of thing
for a living.

        -- Robert
--
Robert Plamondon, President/Managing Editor, High-Tech Technical Writing, Inc.
36475 Norton Creek Road * Blodgett * Oregon * 97326
robert -at- plamondon -dot- com * (541) 453-5841 * Fax: (541) 453-4139