Re: Manipulating Word text in structured FM

[Larry.Kollar@xxxxxxxxxx]

Sharon Conroy asks:
>> I need help in converting text copied from Word to structured 
Framemaker.
>>
>> Essentially I need to know if there is a way to *apply* elements to the
>> copied text?

Dan Emory responds:
> See Structure Rules Tables in Appendix A of the Developer's Guide. ...
>
> But the structure rules tables are not going to work unless the 
converted 
> Word document is consistently tagged, with no (or minimal) format 
> overrides.

I agree with Dan -- I've recently had to do exactly what Sharon is
trying to do and the Word file was a mishmash of overrides to Normal.
My solution was to paste text from Word into a text editor, use scripts
to wrap text with the proper tags, then import that text into Frame.
That works quite well on Unix-type systems (including MacOSX), which
include several powerful scripting languages.

A somewhat less efficient method is to save the Word file as plain
text, import that into Frame, and use the Element Catalog to wrap
selected pieces of text. Use Element menu -> Element Catalog to open
the catalog, select a chunk of text, then double-click the element
you want to assign to that selection (or click the element once and
then click the Wrap button below the element list). Tedious, but you
may not have a choice.

If you have a *lot* of documents like that to convert to structured
format, there are a couple of companies that claim to be able to
convert a PDF to properly structured XML.

        http://www.exegenix.com/
        http://www.vginfosys.com/

(I have no affiliation with either company, even as a customer.)

--
Larry Kollar, Senior Technical Writer, ARRIS
"Content creators are the engine that drives
value in the information life cycle."
    -- Barry Schaeffer, on XML-Doc

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