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Subject:Re: Translation to HTML From:Tim Altom <taltom -at- SIMPLYWRITTEN -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 29 Apr 1999 20:05:19 -0500
>Is there any package around that translates from something into really
>accurate HTML? I've been burned enough by Frame to know not to use the
>"Save As HTML" feature. I've now heard that Word's Save As HTML doesn't
>produce accurate HTML either. And I've heard that even going into
>Netscape's edit mode and editing an existing HTML page tends to produce
>slightly messed up HTML too. I don't have parallel experience with IE4.
Part of the problem is that there's not a true "accurate HTML" without
specifying which HTML version, and which extensions to which browsers. Frame
does a perfectly good job with everything up to about HTML 3-something, but
it's dependent on a CSS. If you know how to edit the CSS, you can get fairly
good control over the rendering. But it's not as easy as click-select-get
HTML. Actually, the use of a CSS is much more in line with W3C's HTML 4
recommendations than just writing HTML automatically.
We've recently run across an example of what you're talking about. I didn't
think that HTML text could overlap, but it can. We just let Frame have its
head saving as HTML, and darned if the resulting tagged text didn't overlap.
But in our original file we had text overlapping, so it just faithfully
replicated that. This and other hiccups are our fault, not Frame's.
For better control, one of the top packages we've ever seen is Quadralay's.
Fingertip control, great reliability. A rosy red female dog to set up,
though, if you're not familiar with such things.
As to creating HTML all over again...I'm foursquare, utterly, unarguably
agin it. In our shop, we either do single source, or HTML alone. Never,
never, never, never parallel.
Tim Altom
Adobe Certified Expert, Acrobat
Simply Written, Inc.
The FrameMaker support people
We train and consult on the Clustar Method
for single source documentation
317.562-9298 http://www.simplywritten.com
