Tool for 'automatic' markup

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3 total messages Started by murraya Sun, 20 Dec 1992 16:41

#479

Author: murraya
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1992 16:41

9 lines
525 bytes

Do anybody out there know anything about an application to `automatically` 
generate markuped text, (possibly according to an sgml DTD) from an ordinary 
ASCII file. 

I like this application to work on user defined rules.

          Aonghus

Re: Tool for 'automatic' markup

#481

Author: Eric Mackie
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 15:30

25 lines
1484 bytes

In article <20180.2b34a24a@ul.ie> murraya@ul.ie writes:
>Do anybody out there know anything about an application to `automatically` 
>generate markuped text, (possibly according to an sgml DTD) from an ordinary 
>ASCII file. 
>
>I like this application to work on user defined rules.
>
>          Aonghus
>  
> 
There is a product called OmniMark from Software Exoterica in Ottawa, Canada
which we have been using to translate text to SGML from a number of different
formats including ASCII and WordPerfect. We have found this to be an
excellent tool and have used it to translate thousands of pages of text.

OmniMark is very full-functioned and therefore a fairly expensive product,
however they have an academic research licence which is only $250. Anyone
interested can contact Eric Skinner at (613)722-1700 or by email at
ers@xgml.com.

By the way I have no involvement with this company except as a happy user.

Eric Mackie
Computer Systems Group
University of Waterloo

Re: Tool for 'automatic' markup

#485

Author: Graham Toal
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 06:39

27 lines
1598 bytes

In article <20180.2b34a24a@ul.ie> murraya@ul.ie writes:
:Do anybody out there know anything about an application to `automatically` 
:generate markuped text, (possibly according to an sgml DTD) from an ordinary 
:ASCII file. 
:
:I like this application to work on user defined rules.

I hacked a custom application to do this myself, to convert tex-like
typesetting input files into fully marked-up SGML database files.

I tried all the common parser-generators, but none would cope with the
ambiguities of a grammar complex enough to describe real data (most of
what I was extracting from these typesetting files was bibliographic
references in various styles).  I eventually wrote a TDRC arbitrary-
lookahead parser transcriber to do the job for me. It ended up looking
a lot like Yacc, was much slower than yacc, and a hell of a lot more
flexible than yacc.

To do the job completely I took about a year to write the program, and
it *always* has to be modified whenever the typesetters/editors make
small changes to their layout.

It's not a job for the fainthearted.  I don't recommend it.

Of course, it depends on your data.  Just how free-form is it?

G

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