anita@tnoibbc.UUCP (Anita Eijs) (07/27/90)
We are thinking about the use of SGML for document storage and transfer.
We have some questions about this ISO-standard and the available software
tools. Please give me some answers to the following questions :
1) Are WYSISWYG-wordprocessors available which can read and write
SGML ?
2) Are any translators available to convert SGML to troff, TeX,
MSWord, etc., and vice versa ?
3) Is an SGML to PostScript converter available ?
4) Does SGML support drawings (illustrations) ? How about tables,
mathematical expressions ?
5) Is it possible to use SGML and CGM in combination ? How about the
availability of CGM-translators ?
6) Are parsers available to check an SGML-document on syntax ?
7) Are the software tools public domain ? What are the prices of the
software tools ? What kind of software tools are available ?
8) Will the newsgroup 'comp.text.sgml' be created ?
Thanks in advance !
Anita
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Anita Eijs : TNO - IBBC USENET : anita@tnoibbc
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: the Netherlands FAX : +31 15 843990mss+@andrew.cmu.edu (Mark Sherman) (07/30/90)
Excerpts from netnews.comp.text: 27-Jul-90 software tools for SGML Anita Eijs@tnoibbc.UUCP (1197) > 1) Are WYSISWYG-wordprocessors available which can read and write > SGML ? > 2) Are any translators available to convert SGML to troff, TeX, MSWord, etc., and vice versa ? > 3) Is an SGML to PostScript converter available ? These questions illustrate a common misunderstanding of SGML. WYSISWYG [sic], troff, TeX, MSWord and Postscript all provide imaging models for a document, that is, what the document looks like on paper. SGML provides *no* such semantics. ISO SGML does not even define possible structures of a document, only ways to specify structure. For example, you can use the tags definitions defined by AAP or CALS, but they are not interchangable. Of course, you can make your own tags (like, I'm told, HP did for their documentation) and be unlike everyone else. AAP and HP specifically excluded implied imaging semantics from their tags, since they wanted different formating at different times. I believe that the CALS tags are supposed to be associated with a specific kind of imaging to match Mil Std 28001, but I'm not up on such things. Regardless, the question of imaging semantics is outside of SGML. One can define imaging semantics to be associated with SGML. The program AuthorEditor from SoftQuad is quite nice in that regard. But its conventions are parochial -- an "SGML" system knows nothing about AE's semantics, unless the exchanging parties agree to information outside of the standard. > 4) Does SGML support drawings (illustrations) ? How about tables, > mathematical expressions ? Yes and no. SGML only supports marked up bytes streams. (That means you place a special marker at the beginning and ending of some bytes, like \my-tag{ <insert bytes here>}.) SGML defines how to write tags, and the ways that tags can be inferred when missing. Now, you and I can make a side agreement that whenever we use the tag "my-CGM-byte", the marked bytes will be in CGM-compliant format. However, that is an agreement outside of the standard and only usable by our local cabal. Ditto for tables, mathematical expressions. > 5) Is it possible to use SGML and CGM in combination ? How about the > availability of CGM-translators ? See above. > 6) Are parsers available to check an SGML-document on syntax ? I believe SoftQuad sells them. Quality, functionality and price unknown to me. There are probably more around, although I recall an article by Larry Welsch from NIST (ACM document processing conference) claiming that some parts of SGML were exceedingly difficult to implement, so you should watch out for how much is implemented when someone makes a claim. > 7) Are the software tools public domain ? What are the prices of the > software tools ? What kind of software tools are available ? A group at Ohio State led by Sandy Mamrak was trying to organize a consortium on related things. I do not know the outcome. -Mark