Importing documents in DECwrite / FrameMaker

[Tom Morris]

Several weeks ago Johan Vromans asked about labor efficient ways to import
text from other text processing and desktop publishing tools into DECwrite,
preserving style element tagging.  (article <1990Oct3.184114.22869 at Matrix.COM>)

|> What I need is a way to tell DECwrite that it must apply specific
|> styles to the paragraphs while loading the document. (The load
|> document is generated automatically and I can control what is
|> generated, and how.) I think this can be done with a suitable CDA
|> converter, but I don't have any experience with writing one.

Jim Gettys already suggested checking out the CDA Converter Library, but I
recently received some more detailled instructions explaining exactly how to
do this which I thought would be worth passing along.  The specific 
instructions are for importing text from Interleaf, but this should generalize
to other formats which contain explicit markup.

These instructions were created by a publications consulting group here at
Digital.  They offer a wide variety of services that may be of use to folks 
publishing problems, so I've included contact information for them at the
end of this post.

Here are the instructions from Dan Dube of the Customer Publications Consulting
group:

-- Begin Quote --

"The process I established for converting Interleaf text into DECwrite is
listed
below:

                   Converting Interleaf text into DECwrite

1) Save your Interleaf document in INTERLEAF ASCII format. (This is basically
an ASCII file with Interleaf markup.) The beginning of this file contains
information about each component in the document (typeface, leading, tabs,
etc.)

2) Use the information from the Interleaf ASCII file to create a corresponding
template in DECwrite. You must create a corresponding DECwrite element for each
Interleaf component. Save this DECwrite template with a .DOC_STYLE file
extension.

3) EXPORT this document to AFS format. (NOTE: You *must* have CDA Converter
Library installed on your system to do this.) This will create an AFS style
reference file that you can use later.

4) In Interleaf, open a document you wish to convert. At the beginning of each
section of text in the document, add the component name in angle brackets. For
example, if you have a component named "para", insert <para> at the beginning
of the text of that component. At the end of the text of that component, insert
the same tag, with a backslash before the tag name. For example, at the end of
the "para" component, insert </para>. (This is similar to an ending tag in VAX
DOCUMENT.) You need to do this for your entire Interleaf document. 

5) Once you have completed tagging the Interleaf document, use the Interleaf
STRIPFILT procedure to remove all of the Interleaf markup. This will leave you
with a tagged ASCII file.

6) You need to add a few commands to this file:

	- at the top, add <afs$styleref>afs$filename.ddif
	  (copy this line from the AFS file you exported from DECwrite)
	
	- the next line, add this command:	<flow.0>

	- at the bottom, add this command:	</flow.0>


7) Open a new DECwrite file. When you are prompted for a style file, choose
NONE.

8) Import (in AFS format) the tagged ASCII file you created from Interleaf.

After you've imported the file, very little cleanup work should be required.
Each block of text should be a separate element with the correct formatting
information.

--End Quote--

--Begin short advertisment--

The folks that created these instructions do consulting on all aspects of
publications from planning to writing to production.  Their advertising blurb
says that they know about: on-line documentation, user interface design, 
electronic publishing, internationalization, Digital's Compound Document
Architecture, hypermedia, demand print, and electronic film mastering.

For more information, contact one of the following people:

          Karen Andersen, +1 603-884-7591
          John Franzosa,  +1 603-884-5363
          Carolyn Haneke, +1 206-952-0605
          Polly Prescott, +1 603-884-1535

--End advertisment--

--
Tom Morris				morris at casee.enet.dec.com
Digital Equipment,
Centre Technique Europe S.A.R.L		DTN 828-5729
B.P. 129 - Sophia Antipolis 		Tel. +33 92 95 57 29
06561 Valbonne Cedex - France		Fax  +33 93 65 41 58