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HTML 3/4 to FrameMaker MIF

The HTML to MIF filter converts formatted text, tables, and graphics, incuding JPEG and GIF. If GIF images are animated, only the first image is converted.

Filtrix recognizes CSS (cascading style sheets) on import. All CSS paragraph-oriented CLASS tags are rendered as paragraph format tags and defined in the FrameMaker paragraph catalog. If the HTML document does not contain CSS formatting, Filtrix takes each HTML tag that initiates a new paragraph and turns it into a format tag prefixed by "HTML_" in FrameMaker. For example, a tag will become a format tagged as "HTML_p" in FrameMaker. This is done in order to facilitate editing of the generated MIF document.

Autonumbered paragraphs are used in connection with their number styles, and therefore are a special case: an autonumbered HTML paragraph that uses numeric formatting will be identified in FrameMaker as "HTML_li_1#". Hyperlinks are converted to either FrameMaker cross-references ("XRef") for internal links, or hyperlinks ("message URL") for WWW links. Within FrameMaker, these hyperlinks are active in View-Only mode (via Special > Hypertext > Make View-Only).

Other formatting that is preserved includes HTML text attribute tags such as , , and . Character styles are retained from HTML source files. Block indenting is implemented by the use of <UL> tags. Conversion of tables preserves straddles, rules, captions, header, and body row identification.

FrameMaker does not display table cells that extend beyond a page in depth. The handling of tables has been improved, allowing conversion of the common use of nested table structures as a means of depicting columns in browsers.

When converting HTML documents to FrameMaker, two types of conditional text may be stored in the FrameMaker file. To view these, the user should select [Special] -> [Conditional Text] in FrameMaker. If "Comment" and/or "fxHTML" are listed in the popup box, the corresponding data can be displayed by selecting [Show]/[Hide], selecting a tag, choosing <- to move it to the [Show] side, selecting [Apply], and exiting.

& quot;Comment" refers to conventional HTML comment data. "fxHTML" refers to HTML tags used by Filtrix to store formatting that is not representable in a word processor format. This is done so as to enable "round-tripping" between HTML and the various Filtrix-supported formats. The full implementation of this round-tripping will be completed in a later release. At that time, if the FrameMaker file is eventually exported back to HTML using Filtrix, these tags will be restored.

Note that FrameMaker cannot center-align a graphic frame, so such HTML elements as centered rules will not appear centered after the conversion to FrameMaker.

FrameMaker to HTML

The FrameMaker MIF to HTML filter converts MIF BodyPage data, including text, tables, and anchored graphics to HTML. Since there are no pages, headers, or footers in HTML, most MasterPage data is not converted to HTML.

FrameImage rasters are converted to either JPEG or GIF images.

Users have the option of producing HTML 3.2 files with or without CSS.

FrameMaker cross-references ("XRef") and the various types of hyperlinks ("openlink/gotolink"/"message URL) are all converted to HTML hyperlinks (<A NAME=. . .>and <A HREF=. . .> tags).

Footnotes are preserved utilizing HTML hyperlinks to the footnote contents, which are appended to the end of the HTML document. As may be expected, HTML with CSS allows the best results with paragraph and font formatting, including all types of indenting, paragraph leading, and font attributes. CSS permits the conversion of FrameMaker paragraph format tags and stores the format definitions in an external CSS document, which makes modifying them easier. Local format overrides, found in many documents, are also preserved using HTML inline styles.

Users who want their HTML documents to be accessible to clients without CSS-enabled browsers can choose the standard HTML 3.2 export, which does not produce CSS files. Conversion of tables preserves straddles, rules (limited functionality), titles, header, and body row identification.