It is possible to get source for GTM manuals in a form that could be converted to HTML more readily than pdf? I have found a couple of tools that extract text from PDF, but they have problems such as recognizing headings and maintaining separation of words across line breaks. They apparently leave much work to be done to arrive at an HTML document that reasonably approximates the organization and basic formatting of the original.
Is anyone else working on or interested in this issue?
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The GT.M manuals are unfortunately not in a form that is suitable for easy conversion to HTML. In order to keep the maximize consistency between the UNIX books, the VMS books, and the online they are written in Interleaf. Using tags and conditionals, the same source document can become any of the targets. The only freely available text processing systems that can do this level of customization that I know of are TeX and various *roff variants.
Unfortunately, our technical writer is currently a very talented, but not very productive, person called Open Position. Resumes are solicited!
-- Bhaskar
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Bhaskar,
I am not familiar with Interleaf, but your mention of "tags and conditionals" suggests to me that the document format of the master documents may in fact already be formatted in a markup language like SGML. If that is the case, then it should be a much better starting point for me than the pdf. Is that available?
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Bhaskar,
I would very much like to help get uptodate GTM manuals and other documentation available on the net in a searchable hypertext format.
I am not familiar with the Interleaf document format, but if it is any kind of text markup, I am confident that I could convert it to an accessible form of HTML without loss of content.
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As mentioned by Bhaskar in an earlier message (dated 2000-12-01) in this thread, the GT.M Admin&Ops manuals are unfortunately not in a form that is suitable for easy conversion to HTML as they are currently stored in Interleaf format.
Thanks,
Narayanan.
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It's sad. Is there a way to convert these Interleaf documents, say, to TeX (LaTeX) or SGML?
What if I will extract text from PDFs and re-create markup it TeX? Am I permitted to do so by manual's license (if it has some)?
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It is unfortunate, but the real problem is more complicated than just Interleaf. Interleaf was indeed once the publishing system used for GT.M manuals. We have now switched to FrameMaker (yes, I know, it would be appropriate to do it in Open Office today, but we can't spare the time for yet another switch).
The GT.M manuals use a tag system for specific content so that one documentation "source" is used to produce the VMS and UNIX manuals and help system. We had a couple of former writers (who are no longer with the GT.M team) who broke the tags to the point where they need to be recreated. The tags in the Programmers Guide were repaired last year, and the Programmers Guide was republished in the browsable format last year. The tags in the Admin & Ops Guide have not yet been repaired, and until they are repaired, there will not be a new manual (hopefully later this year). Until then, please use the PDF file.
Please feel free to take the PDF documents and convert them to your preferred format.
-- Bhaskar
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
It is possible to get source for GTM manuals in a form that could be converted to HTML more readily than pdf? I have found a couple of tools that extract text from PDF, but they have problems such as recognizing headings and maintaining separation of words across line breaks. They apparently leave much work to be done to arrive at an HTML document that reasonably approximates the organization and basic formatting of the original.
Is anyone else working on or interested in this issue?
The GT.M manuals are unfortunately not in a form that is suitable for easy conversion to HTML. In order to keep the maximize consistency between the UNIX books, the VMS books, and the online they are written in Interleaf. Using tags and conditionals, the same source document can become any of the targets. The only freely available text processing systems that can do this level of customization that I know of are TeX and various *roff variants.
Unfortunately, our technical writer is currently a very talented, but not very productive, person called Open Position. Resumes are solicited!
-- Bhaskar
Bhaskar,
I am not familiar with Interleaf, but your mention of "tags and conditionals" suggests to me that the document format of the master documents may in fact already be formatted in a markup language like SGML. If that is the case, then it should be a much better starting point for me than the pdf. Is that available?
Bhaskar,
I would very much like to help get uptodate GTM manuals and other documentation available on the net in a searchable hypertext format.
I am not familiar with the Interleaf document format, but if it is any kind of text markup, I am confident that I could convert it to an accessible form of HTML without loss of content.
Hi!
I want translate PDFs in AdminOpsUNIX.tgz for Russian users. Could you please provide me with sources of this PDFs (*.tex or something) ?
Hi,
As mentioned by Bhaskar in an earlier message (dated 2000-12-01) in this thread, the GT.M Admin&Ops manuals are unfortunately not in a form that is suitable for easy conversion to HTML as they are currently stored in Interleaf format.
Thanks,
Narayanan.
It's sad. Is there a way to convert these Interleaf documents, say, to TeX (LaTeX) or SGML?
What if I will extract text from PDFs and re-create markup it TeX? Am I permitted to do so by manual's license (if it has some)?
It is unfortunate, but the real problem is more complicated than just Interleaf. Interleaf was indeed once the publishing system used for GT.M manuals. We have now switched to FrameMaker (yes, I know, it would be appropriate to do it in Open Office today, but we can't spare the time for yet another switch).
The GT.M manuals use a tag system for specific content so that one documentation "source" is used to produce the VMS and UNIX manuals and help system. We had a couple of former writers (who are no longer with the GT.M team) who broke the tags to the point where they need to be recreated. The tags in the Programmers Guide were repaired last year, and the Programmers Guide was republished in the browsable format last year. The tags in the Admin & Ops Guide have not yet been repaired, and until they are repaired, there will not be a new manual (hopefully later this year). Until then, please use the PDF file.
Please feel free to take the PDF documents and convert them to your preferred format.
-- Bhaskar