Re: [docbook-apps] Frame to Docbook XML

[martin jakubik <martin.jakubik@solsoft.com>]

Hi Bob, this is an interesting idea, but I thought this was impossible 
to automate using FrameMaker alone. My questions below.

>which is installed under your FrameMaker 7 directory.  You have to create
>conversion tables to map your FrameMaker styles to DocBook elements and
>attributes.  Once you create the conversion tables, you apply them to as
>many files as you have that use those FrameMaker styles.  Then you can use
>the FrameMaker DocBook XML application to save as DocBook XML.
>  
>
 From my very modest experiments with FrameMaker XML, the output 
generated by FrameMaker is "flat". Ie., you can get something along the 
lines of:

<heading1>
  title text
</heading1>

<para>
  para text
</para>

<para>
  para text
</para>

<heading2>
  title text
</heading2>

...etc.

Stylesheets will have difficulty converting this to a 
hierarchical-ownership structure. The hard part is created correct child 
sections, and re-inserting figures or tables that are "owned" by 
paragraphs, and so on. As far as I know, using FrameMaker's conversion 
tables to map "Heading2" to "title" will not give FrameMaker enough 
information to  create a level-2 <section> under the current level-1 
<section>, rather than ending the current level-1 <section> and starting 
a new level-1 <section>.

This is why I suggest using WebWorks Publisher macros, if available, to 
"remember" the current position in the document to output the correct 
DocBook structure.

However, I trust your advice, so I might be missing something. Is the 
"FrameMaker DocBook XML application", really made to handle the above 
problem?

martin