blarsen@spider.uio.no (Bjorn Larsen) (09/11/90)
Does anybody have a description of the SGML-based translators available?
I'm interested in translators such as
WP5.0 <-> SGML
RTF <-> SGML
LaTeX <-> SGML
troff <-> SGML
whatever <-> SGML
Commercial or Public Domain. Complete or partial. Finished or under
construction. Everything of interest.
--
Bjorn Larsen University of Oslo, Norway
Bjorn.Larsen@usit.uio.nofunk@SRC.Honeywell.COM (Harry Funk) (09/11/90)
In article <BLARSEN.90Sep11085038@spider.uio.no> Bjorn.Larsen@usit.uio.no writes: > >Does anybody have a description of the SGML-based translators available? [stuff deleted] >Bjorn Larsen University of Oslo, Norway > Bjorn.Larsen@usit.uio.no I haven't been following it recently, but a couple of years back, Sandra Mamrak (mamrak@tut.cs.ohio-state.edu) was working with a group on a system called "Chameleon", which was (is?) a data translation system capable of generating up- and down-translators for a standard representation (SGML). You might contact her for more information. H. Harry A. Funk Voice: (612)-782-7396 Honeywell Systems and Research Center Inet: funk@src.honeywell.com 3660 Technology Dr. MS:MN65-2500 UUCP: funk@srcsip Minneapolis, MN 55418 Bang: {umn-cs,ems,mmm}!srcsip!funk
verber@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu (Mark Verber) (09/11/90)
Indeed, Sandy Mamrak (mamrak@cis.ohio-state.edu) has been constructing tools that translate to and from sgml. She has formed a consortium simular to the X consortium, where sponsors get early releases, but the code eventually makes it way to the public. I believe there first release will be in the next year. Cheers, Mark Verber
bernhold@qtp.ufl.edu (David E. Bernholdt) (09/11/90)
In article <BLARSEN.90Sep11085038@spider.uio.no> Bjorn.Larsen@usit.uio.no writes: >Does anybody have a description of the SGML-based translators available? >I'm interested in translators such as ... > LaTeX <-> SGML We'll this doesn't entirely fit the bill, but... There is a commercial product from Arbortext, Inc. called The Publisher which is a DTP (desktop publishing) package which uses SGML as its internal document format and TeX as the formatter. Consequently, SGML --> TeX is done "all the time", but this TeX makes heavy use of their own macros. Along with this, they provide a couple of utilities which can convert LaTeX <--> SGML. I have no idea if they'd provide the translators separately. -- David Bernholdt bernhold@qtp.ufl.edu Quantum Theory Project bernhold@ufpine.bitnet University of Florida Gainesville, FL 32611 904/392 6365
paul@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu (Paul Pomes - UofIllinois CSO) (09/12/90)
blarsen@spider.uio.no (Bjorn Larsen) writes: >Does anybody have a description of the SGML-based translators available? >I'm interested in translators such as > > WP5.0 <-> SGML > RTF <-> SGML > LaTeX <-> SGML > troff <-> SGML > whatever <-> SGML > >Commercial or Public Domain. Complete or partial. Finished or under >construction. Everything of interest. As part of my ox2 front-end to the OED2 in SGML format, I wrote two routines that provide formatted output in plain, troff, and VT2XX escape sequences. The code is GNU licensed and available from uxc.cso.uiuc.edu in pub/oed2-2.03.tar.Z . The OED2 data is licensed from Oxford University Press and must be obtained from them. /pbp -- Paul Pomes UUCP: {att,iuvax,uunet}!uiucuxc!paul Internet, BITNET: paul@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu US Mail: UofIllinois, CSO, 1304 W Springfield Ave, Urbana, IL 61801-2910
emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) (09/12/90)
In article <1139@orange19.qtp.ufl.edu> bernhold@qtp.ufl.edu (David E. Bernholdt) writes:
There is a commercial product from Arbortext, Inc. called The
Publisher which is a DTP (desktop publishing) package which uses SGML
as its internal document format and TeX as the formatter.
Consequently, SGML --> TeX is done "all the time", but this TeX makes
heavy use of their own macros. Along with this, they provide a couple
of utilities which can convert LaTeX <--> SGML.
ArborText Customer Support can be reached as "help@arbortext.com".
--Ed
Edward Vielmetti, U of Michigan math dept <emv@math.lsa.umich.edu>
moderator, comp.archives
disclaimer: I live about 4 blocks from Arbortext & know several
people there, but I have no financial stake in their stuff.ath@prosys.se (Anders Thulin) (09/12/90)
In article <BLARSEN.90Sep11085038@spider.uio.no> Bjorn.Larsen@usit.uio.no writes: > >Does anybody have a description of the SGML-based translators available? This is from a posting to TEI-L, the public discussion list of the Text Encoding Initiative. [ ... ] 4. Here (from memory) is a brief list of SGML parsing/validating software: a. From Sema Group MarkIt WriteIt b. From Software Exoterica XGML Validator XGML Normaliser XGML CheckMark XGML Translator c. From SoftQuad: AuthorEditor d. From IBM: DCF/SGML edition LEXX e. From Open Texts Systems PAT f. Academic projects TOLK (Turing Inst) DAPHNE (DFN) [ ... ] Lou Burnard I have also seen some rumours (?) that Microsoft is planning to incorporate some type of SGML support in a future version of Word. Hope this is of any help, -- Anders Thulin ath@prosys.se {uunet,mcsun}!sunic!prosys!ath Telesoft Europe AB, Teknikringen 2B, S-583 30 Linkoping, Sweden
flack@sc2a.unige.ch (09/12/90)
In article <BLARSEN.90Sep11085038@spider.uio.no>, blarsen@spider.uio.no (Bjorn Larsen) writes: > Does anybody have a description of the SGML-based translators available? > I'm interested in translators such as > For your general information, there is a book on SGML which has just been written by Eric van Herwijnen, of the DD Division of CERN in Geneva. (CERN is the European High-Energy Physics Laboratory). The reference is Practical SGML by Eric van Herwijnen. 200 pp Paperback US$ 40.0 - 0.05 ( = 39.95$). ISBN 0-7923-0635-X. Kluwer Academic publishers. You can contact him on e-mail: eric@cernvm.bitnet telephone: [+[41] 22] 767 50 87 The group is CERN has got some soft already running with SGML and distribute a diskette of macro's and stylesheets, and SGML producing programme for Microsoft Word IV (for version V in the near-future). You can get more concrete information from van Herwijnen. From: H. D. Flack Laboratoire de Cristallographie University of Geneva 24 quai Ernest-Ansermet CH-1211 Geneve 4 Switzerland Telephone [+[41] 22] 702 62 49 Telefax [+[41] 22] 781 21 92 Telex ch-42 11 59 siad e-mail flack@sc2a.unige.ch
dns@sq.sq.com (David Slocombe) (09/15/90)
In article <BLARSEN.90Sep11085038@spider.uio.no>Bjorn.Larsen@usit.uio.no writes: >Does anybody have a description of the SGML-based translators available? >I'm interested in translators such as > > WP5.0 <-> SGML > RTF <-> SGML > LaTeX <-> SGML > troff <-> SGML What is requested here is in general not possible without the user supplying substantial additional information -- in fact this touches upon the key motivation for SGML. <background-info> SGML == Standard Generalized Markup Language, IS 8879-1986. See my parallel posting "How to obtain info on SGML" DTD == Document Type Definition. SGML tells how to create one. This specifies the "grammar" of a class of documents. A particular document is an "instance" of the language specified by the "grammar", just like in your programming-languages course. </background-info> The need for SGML is demonstrated by examining the problem of translating a troff document (for example) into an SGML document: If a computer program looks at a file containing a troff document, it will see things like... .sp .5v .ti 2m text text text .... ...text text. .sp .5v Now we may decide, in context, that these formatting codes are formatting a paragraph (we *visualize* the effect of the codes!), but they *might* be formatting a "note" or a cell of a table or whatever. And this must be about the simplest case. In general it is a kind of AI problem to deduce the logical structure of a document from its formatting codes, and a task that requires considerable "training" before it can be done algorithmically with any accuracy! (Of course most troff documents use macro-calls, but this only hides the problem a little: someone still has to map the macro-calls to the SGML elements, and this may be one-to-many unless the designer of the macro package was already thinking in an SGML way. If he was, then SGML contributes to him a rigorousness and a software support that he has never had before.) In fact there is a company that specializes in software to do exactly this. They are: Avalanche Development Company 947 Walnut Street Boulder, Colorado 80302 (303) 449-5032 FAX (303) 449-3246 Their FastTAG product accepts input from WP4.2 and WP5.0, OCR formats, DCA/RFT files, Microsoft Word, print-image files, Calera PDA files and Shaftstall Media Conversion files. I think they are expanding the list all the time. BUT... you have to do considerable work to coach FastTAG, because by itself it cannot be expected to know just what logical elements make up your documents (i.e. it cannot intuit the DTD), *and* it cannot guess at the format of each element in that DTD. So you have to tell it these things. This is usually practical only if you are going to convert a body of documents from a particular formatted form to SGML. Naturally! That's why SGML is so important: it is a way for document creators to supply this valuable information about their work that hitherto has been visible to the human reader (hopefully) but not available to computer programs. Instead of coding up your documents with formatting codes which result in a visible image that your brain interprets to mean a certain logical structure, you code your documents with the logical structure, and then map that structure to formatting instructions in a separate operation. The documents themselves then are much more "computable" as data-structures, *and* you can take the same document/data-structure and map it to different visual representations at different times for different purposes. Or even map it to different formatting languages (e.g. troff at one site, Tex at another site). Or load it into a database (mapping the logical structure into database-update language). But again note that going from SGML to troff, for example, requires that you specify just what troff codes or macros you want used for each SGML logical structure. There is nothing in the SGML form of the document that binds to a particular visual representation. So SGML->formatter-language cannot be automatic unless you supply additional information. At least this *can* be done with great reliability, which is often *not* the case for formatter-language->SGML. The mapping from SGML to a formatter-language is usually done using an SGML parser/translator, i.e., a program that parses the SGML documents (using a supplied Document Type Definition) and writes to its output suitable formatting codes (or the macro-calls that represent them) to typeset the document in a specific format. The user must either supply a mapping to formatting codes to produce the particular "look" desired, or supply a mapping to macro-calls and then write a macro-package that has the same effect. In either case, the SGML parser has to be told what to put out. The parser has the advantage that a document that does not conform in detail to the DTD simply won't be translated, just as is the case with a C compiler. This greatly eases the burden on the writer of the macro package, who doesn't have to make his macros robust in the face of incorrect input! As to available parsers, I quote from a comp.text posting by my colleague Yuri Rubinsky only a short time ago: Today, the most popular parsers, which are generally conceded to also be the most conformant [to the Standard], are those of Software Exoterica (of Ottawa Canada), licensed by Frame, Arbortext and Intergraph; and of Sobemap (of Brussels Belgium, marketed by Yard Software of Chippenham Wiltshire UK), licensed by Agfa Compugraphic CAPS, Interleaf, Context and Xyvision. We have made available to our consulting clients the parser from Author/Editor, which is optimized to work with our SoftQuad Publishing Software sqtroff component. Hope all this helps someone... David. ---------------------------------------------------------------- David Slocombe (416) 963-8337 Vice-President, Research & Development (800) 387-2777 (from U.S. only) SoftQuad Inc. uucp: {uunet,utzoo}!sq!dns 720 Spadina Ave. Internet: dns@sq.com Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 2T9 Fax: (416) 963-9575
kevinc@cs.athabascau.ca (Kevin Crocker) (09/15/90)
In article <BLARSEN.90Sep11085038@spider.uio.no> Bjorn.Larsen@usit.uio.no writes: > >Does anybody have a description of the SGML-based translators available? >I'm interested in translators such as > > WP5.0 <-> SGML > RTF <-> SGML If these things exist I'd love to know about them. WE use Pc's a lot but I can convert all of our PC word processing and Document layout into either or both WP5.0 or RFT and it owuld be great to go to SGML from there. Kevin -- Kevin "auric" Crocker Athabasca University UUCP: ...!{alberta,ncc}!atha!kevinc Inet: kevinc@cs.AthabascaU.CA