RE: DOCBOOK: looking for Framemaker -> SGML DocBook DTD (and DkBk -> Fmk) free tools

[Peter Ring <PRI at cddk dot dk>]

There's a MIF manual online in FrameMaker. You may want to print 
it out, or make a PDF of it (it is reliable, instructive, and huge).

I can't help much with the MIF backend in Jade. Try contacting 
ISOGEN, mailto:sgml@isogen.com. 

Be prepared for a step learning curve if you want to use DSSSL, 
unless of course you know Scheme or another Lisp language in 
advance. There's quite a lot of resources for DSSSL and Jade; 
start your search at http://www.oasis-open.org/cover/dsssl.html.

Currently, we use OmniMark a lot to convert SGML source files to 
various other formats, including MIF. We went this avenue after 
growing tired with FrameMaker+SGML's EDD, which lacks a proper 
programming language (which OmniMark isn't quite either, BTW). 
While it is possible to extends Framemaker+SGML's built-in 
conversion facilities using the Frame API, it is a bit costly 
in terms of development effort.

The caveat is, whether you go one or the way to unstructured MIF, 
that the FrameMaker document is "for presentation only"; there is 
no safe and easy way to round-trip between SGML and unstructered 
FrameMaker documents. Don't expect to be able to use FrameMaker 
as your SGML editor unless you actually use FrameMaker+SGML and 
develop a FrameMaker+SGML application.

Kind regards,
Peter Ring

-----Original Message-----
From: Sylvan Ravinet [mailto:sylvan@ravinet.com]
Sent: Monday, October 18, 1999 9:00 PM
To: docbook@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: DOCBOOK: looking for Framemaker -> SGML DocBook DTD (and
DkBk -> Fmk) free tools

Could you tell me where I could find more general information about MIF?
Do you have also some kind of quick list of steps to guide me through
these (that seems complicated) processes?

Thank you for your help,

Cheers,

-Sylvan

Peter Ring wrote:
> 
> A recent version (I use 1.2.1) of Jade includes a MIF backend (use the
> option '-t mif'), created by Kathleen Marszalek and Paul Prescod and
> sponsored by ISOGEN. There's a description of the features and
> shortcomings of the MIF backend in the documentation (in the
> distribution or look at http://www.jclark.com/jade/mif.htm).

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