SGML to Lout, HTML, etc.

[Aaron Roydhouse]

David> When I last looked it SGML (several months ago I admit) 
David> However it seemed to me that none of the various tools
David> available were actually useable for day to day writing unless
David> you were prepared to put in a lot of customisation at fairly
David> low levels.

Well I won't say it was trivial, but I have a pretty acceptable setup
based on Joerg Wittenberger's `sdc' package (previously called
`typeset'). It defines some sensible SGML document types (DTD's)
designed to have minimal mark-up so that documents can be easily
hand-tagged. It includes a translation framework written in Scheme.
and defines good translations to Lout, LaTeX, HTML, ASCII (via lout),
info, man, and rtf.

It is well designed, but writing your own translations is hard work
until you are intimate with the package.

`sdc' relies on an implementation of Scheme (I use `bigloo'), and the
the excellent `nsgmls' SGML parser. I edit all my SGML documents (ie.
including HTML) in emacs using the very impressive `psgml' mode.

You can get some details and pointers about my set-up from

    http://www.comp.vuw.ac.nz/Technical/SGML/

I've attached a chunk of sdc's own overview.

Aaron

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Typeset is an extensible formatter for documents. It transforms
documents using SGML markup into various target formats.

Typeset comes with a couple of document type definitions (DTD's).

The DTD's feature the reuse of text, minimization of markup and
readability of the SGML source. They share their elements as much as
possible.

The formatting differs due to the features possible in the target
format and to the rules common for the type of the document. This
includes the automated rearrangment of text and insertion of standard
parts like contents sections, sorted index and bibliography. The
latter for instance is composed from the items of a database which are
referenced in the document. For some formats the output may be spread
over a couple of files. See the target type documentation for details.

According to the goal of text reuse and the aim to support many target
formats, these DTD's don't attempt to cover each and every case
possible. Instead, they try to provide all elements nessesary for
daily use and leave the implementation of special features to
extensions.

It is also possible to have parts of the documents using other
notations. E.g., pictures drawn with tgif, xfig, the @Fig package of
Lout or encapsulated postscript.

It is fairly easy to coerce sdc to parse documents with other DTD's.
But this implies to write rules for formatting in the desired target
format(s), or fit in another parsing stage which changes it into a
form as if it was marked acording to a supported DTD.

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