- ntg-context - Mailing Lists

Re: [NTG-context] DOC/RTF to ConTeXt via XML
by Duncan Hothersall 28 Sep '05

28 Sep '05

> No need for rtf. That would loose lots of information anyway, wouldn't it? RTF can capture everything that .doc can (MS update it every time they rev the .doc format), and it has the advantage that it is defined in a spec with a grammar, which means that importing routines (like the one in OO.o) tend to be better than for the binary .doc format. So I would usually use .rtf as the Save As... from Word, rather than relying on OO.o's reverse engineering of the .doc format. Others' experiences may vary, of course, and perhaps I do an injustice to OO.o's Word imports, which have certainly improved. But RTF is a fairly safe bet, and additionally it is 'human readable' so that helps debugging. >>\startHans >>converting open office xml is not always easy; stay away from tab's and use >>high level constructs as much as possible >>\stopHans I would add to this - make sure you use either OO.o 1.1.5 or a 2.0 Beta, since earlier versions used a file format which was a lot trickier to post-process (problems with conflating styles into paragraph formats). >>Once I get a sane xml file (this seems to be the biggest problem) what is the >>best tool to convert this to ConTeXt? Well you might not need to - remember that ConTeXt can process XML natively now, which is why I suggested you look at the DocBook-in-ConTeXt project, which uses this feature. You wouldn't necessarily have to use the DocBook standard, but you could use the principles of that project to define a nice output from your own (simple) brand of XML. Duncan

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t-rsteps and starttyping
by Peter Münster 28 Sep '05

28 Sep '05

Hello, could somebody help me with the following problem please? With the following test file, I get the error "ERROR: Illegal parameter number in definition of \verbatimline." \usemodule[rsteps] \starttext \StartSteps \starttyping hallo \stoptyping \NextStep hallo \StopSteps \stoptext Greetings, Peter -- http://pmrb.free.fr/contact/

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RE: [NTG-context] DOC/RTF to ConTeXt via XML
by Idris Samawi Hamid 28 Sep '05

28 Sep '05

Hi Christopher, Duncan, Hans, and Adam, Thank you so much for your detailed comments and suggestions. Again, I'm completely new to xml and feel like a fish out of water. OTOH I use sooo much time just manually extracting text (with innumerable transliteration diacritics) and then copying-pasting to WinEDT that I am willing to explore the xml approach if it can be made sane enough... >===== Original Message From Christopher Creutzig <christopher(a)creutzig.de> ===== >Duncan Hothersall wrote: >> Well, XSLT seems to have been designed, and certainly tends to be >> implemented, as a tool for simple transformations of small XML chunks. > > No, xslt is a tool for arbitrary xml -> xml conversions (and a little >more than that). Ok, you guys have lost me now-) Maybe the best thing to do is try something practical: take an average word article and see what's involved in converting it to ConTeXt. From what I gather so far the process goes something like doc => rtf rtf => OO.o OO.o => xml But here things get dicey because \startHans converting open office xml is not always easy; stay away from tab's and use high level constructs as much as possible \stopHans Question: Will a proper doc (or OO.o) template solve this problem or is this a post-OO.o-processing problem no matter what I do beforehand? >From this discussion it seems that I (as an xml ignoramous) would be better off converting to ConTeXt code rather than processing pure xml blocks (but maybe I'm wrong). Once I get a sane xml file (this seems to be the biggest problem) what is the best tool to convert this to ConTeXt? We are all extremely busy, of course, but if anyone finds this interesting I can send a sample doc article from my journal. Maybe we can do a MyWay or something to document this process for ourselves and others, as well as find the most practical approach to creating a sane workflow. Besides, this kind of project seems to be exactly the kind of thing to illustrate the full power of ConTeXt. This is a mid-term project so no urgency (I'll keep copying and pasting for now->) Thanks again you all for your advice. Best Idris ============================ Professor Idris Samawi Hamid Department of Philosophy Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523

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bug in \seeindex
by Thomas A. Schmitz 28 Sep '05

28 Sep '05

The code in \seeindex has a bug. There was something in the mailing list about a year ago (2004-06-21), but as far as I can see, the patch Hans proposed then has been integrated into core-reg.tex. Here's a minimal test file: \starttext This \index{this} and \index{and} that \seeindex{this}. \placeindex \stoptext And the error log: ! Argument of \@@filterlevelpart has an extra }. <inserted text> \par <to be read again> } \doifprevlevelelse ...tor \@@filterlevelpart [#1]} \edef \@@tocsectiontype {\... \dosetpageregisterpage ...->\doifreglevelelse [#5] {\dodosetpageregisterpage ... l.46 ...isterpage{index}{,}{3}{2::0:0:0:0:0:0:0}{} Unfortunately, the bug messes up the .tui file, so even if you delete the \seeindex command, the file will not compile unless you delete the .tui manually. Ideas, anybody? Best Thomas

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RE: [NTG-context] DOC/RTF to ConTeXt via XML
by Idris Samawi Hamid 28 Sep '05

28 Sep '05

Hi Duncan, I know little about xml and virtually nothing about Word (except that it's crap) so please forgive me if this is a stupid or clueless question-) >But you should also explore DocBook-in-ConTeXt, which >uses ConTeXt's native XML processing capabilities. Is it possible to create a Word template that is isomorphic with a DocBook format? Adam (privately) suggested hiring someone to write a structured format for authors. Is that where docbook comes in? Basically, authors in the humanities use Word and it's virtually a lost cause getting them to switch to anything else, even free tools like OO.o (let alone ConTeXt). It would have to be someting where I could do word=>docbook=>ConTeXt. <Sigh> Best Idris ============================ Professor Idris Samawi Hamid Department of Philosophy Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523

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presentation in ConTeXt and XeTeX
by 정 달영 28 Sep '05

28 Sep '05

Dear all, I tested presentation mode with "pre-green" module and it worked fine. I also tested the same file with the addition of few lines which set my personal font script for XeTeX-ConTeXt. \usetypescriptfile[type-xkor] \usetypescript[myface] \switchtobodyfont[Myface, 12pt, rm] Save the file(utf-8) and compiled it and I got errors: (/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/tex/context/base/type-akb.tex) (/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/tex/context/base/type-xtx.tex) (/Users/dalyoung/Library/texmf/tex/xetex/type-xkor.tex) (/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/tex/context/base/type-exa.tex) (/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/tex/context/base/type-syn.tex) (/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/tex/context/base/type-enc.tex) (/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/tex/context/base/type-dis.tex) (/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/tex/context/base/type-siz.tex) (/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/tex/context/base/type-map.tex) (/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/tex/context/base/type-spe.tex) (/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/tex/context/base/type-akb.tex) (/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/tex/context/base/type-xtx.tex) (/Users/dalyoung/Library/texmf/tex/xetex/type-xkor.tex)) (./context- pre.tuo) Runaway argument? {^^G^^[⻊\usedmapfile {=}{original-base}\usedmapfile {=}{ec-public-l \ETC. ! File ended while scanning use of \thisisbytesequence. <inserted text> \par <to be read again> \relax \dodoreadfile ...normalinput \readfilename \relax \the \everyafterreadfile \doutilities ...textension }\donothing \donothing \the \everyafterutilityrea... <argument> ...pass }\jobname \empty \relax \relax \ifx \twopassdata \empty \... \firstofoneargument #1->#1 ... l.20 \starttext ? x No pages of output. Is there a way to use presentation module in ConTeXt-XeTeX environment using my fonts? Thank you. Dalyoung

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Re: [NTG-context] DOC/RTF to ConTeXt via XML
by Duncan Hothersall 27 Sep '05

27 Sep '05

Slightly OT, sorry: >>OpenOffice.org does allow you to attach an XSLT stylesheet to an export >>process which therefore allows you to do a (limited) transformation from >>the visual markup which is its native format to a more structured one > > Why „limited“? Well, XSLT seems to have been designed, and certainly tends to be implemented, as a tool for simple transformations of small XML chunks. Obviously complex transformations can be constructed from a bunch of simple transformations, but there comes a point when you should really just use a better tool - though these tend to cost serious money (e.g. OmniMark). Also, most XSLT implementations use the DOM model, which is fine for a 50Kb file but will be incredibly resource-hungry if you're processing files of 5Mb. At that point you want a streaming model, and for a streaming model you want a better suited language than XSLT. As I say, horses for courses. For article-length pieces and simple transforms, XSLT might suffice. > Also, don't limit your authors to Word. Offering Word is obviously a > requirement, but if you go the way through OOo, there would be no point > in not offering an OOo template file. If you are using a standard xml > format, such as (a subset of) DocBook or TEI, you probably should accept > articles in that format, too. And, of course, ConTeXt. Absolutely; particularly if you can offer authors an incentive or direct benefit from adopting OO.o, such as speed of turnaround of proofs, etc.

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interaction in \cite
by Adam Duck 27 Sep '05

27 Sep '05

Hello ConTeXters, I do not want to ask too much, especially as Taco already mentioned he'll be doing a patch for the BibTeX-module... But how do I setup interaction in \cite? \setupinteraction[state=true] works for \at, \in and in the contents but not for \cite. As I weren't able to find it in the documentation nor in the archives, I'll try here. Thx in advance, Adam.

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DOC/RTF to ConTeXt via XML [was: Re: ConTeXt to RTF Conversion]
by Idris Samawi Hamid 27 Sep '05

27 Sep '05

Thank you so much, Christopher, for your detailed answer! >===== Original Message From Christopher Creutzig <christopher(a)creutzig.de> ===== >Idris Samawi Hamid wrote: >> Would it be possible to define an xml format for the journal so that I >> could more easily process both ConTeXt/LaTeX articles as well as the >> docs and rtfs I generally receive? Is this more work than it's worth? >> It's a humanities journal, so little-to-no math. > If your most pressing problem is the variety of data formats you >receive articles in, then no, xml won't help. You'd still need some way >of transforming the articles to the format of your choice. That being >said, XML may be a very good intermediate step from Word or rtf to >ConTeXt, if only because OpenOffice has pretty advanced import filters >and stores its data in a straightforward xml format that should be easy >to transform, assuming you start with a sufficiently rich set of >predefined formats and somehow get people to either use them (fat >chance, I know) fat chance, perhaps, but maybe...(see below) >or have them be sufficiently different that you can >automatically or at least semi-automatically classify the author's >formatting to your presets. In really simple cases (e.g., pure prose) >you may get away with accepting HTML and converting that. Paul Tremblay's pages seem very useful in this regard: http://getfo.sourceforge.net/context_xml/contents.html Question: Is it possible to design a doc or rtf template that Open Office can convert to a sane, consistent xml format? If the Tremblay approach is rich enough, that would solve a lot of problems! Here is my idea: 1. Give each author a doc/rtf template for formatting their article; 2. Use OpenOffice to convert to xml; 3. Use the Tremblay method (have not tried it yet) to process this in Context. Question: Does the entire journal have to be in programmed in xml or can ConTeXt process xml locally? For example, I may have my own article done in COnTeXt mixed with other articles done in rtf=>xml. Any other advice (and/or pitfalls to watch for) would be appreciated. This sounds very promising! Best Idris ============================ Professor Idris Samawi Hamid Department of Philosophy Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523

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Re: [NTG-context] DOC/RTF to ConTeXt via XML
by Duncan Hothersall 27 Sep '05

27 Sep '05

> Question: Is it possible to design a doc or rtf template that Open Office can > convert to a sane, consistent xml format? OpenOffice.org does allow you to attach an XSLT stylesheet to an export process which therefore allows you to do a (limited) transformation from the visual markup which is its native format to a more structured one which you would need. But the biggest challenge is that all wordprocessors are designed for visual editing, meaning that there are, for example, 15 or so different ways to get a bulleted list in Word, creating 15 or so different RTF constructs, and coping with this can be a nightmare. > If the Tremblay approach is rich > enough, that would solve a lot of problems! Here is my idea: > > 1. Give each author a doc/rtf template for formatting their article; > 2. Use OpenOffice to convert to xml; > 3. Use the Tremblay method (have not tried it yet) to process this in Context. The FO approach (Paul Tremblay's focus) is one way to process XML to paginated output, but there are many others. Personally I don't like the FO approach, for a variety of reasons, but I'm sure others have had success with it. But you should also explore DocBook-in-ConTeXt, which uses ConTeXt's native XML processing capabilities. And don't rule out using a separate scripting language to convert XML into ConTeXt as a batch process, since that will give you the ultimate flexibility in accessing all of ConTeXt's abilities. > Question: Does the entire journal have to be in programmed in xml or can > ConTeXt process xml locally? For example, I may have my own article done in > COnTeXt mixed with other articles done in rtf=>xml. You can just put XML into \startXMLdata ... \stopXMLdata blocks. I do this for MathML processing within a larger ConTeXt document. > Any other advice (and/or pitfalls to watch for) would be appreciated. This > sounds very promising! Horses for courses. It's possible to get sucked into things like an FO implementation or an XML conversion and find that you have spent months perfecting it and it only shaves half an hour off your production time! Also, you do tend to have to make compromises in design if you want to be able to process directly from XML. But if you have sufficient throughput and an appropriate design, it can be a real boon. Hope that helps. Duncan

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