Translators from Major Applications

HTML Translators

HTML translators are available for many major applications (Word Processors, Spread Sheets, etc.) Most are geared to generate an HTML page that "looks like" the original document. This has several drawbacks:

• Conventions that work well on paper often don't come across well on the Web.
• The pages are not optimized for viewing with a variety of Web browsers.
• The translator may "abuse" HTML codes to force a certain appearance.
• The translator may generate "bad" HTML in general.
• Hypertext links, if they are supported at all, are hard to manage.

ClarisWorks

For example, the popular ClarisWorks program produces HTML pages with headings, lists, pictures, and hypertext links from any word processing document that follows certain rules:

• Large bold text will become a heading
• Indented items that begin with a bullet will become part of a list
• Embedded graphics will turn into in-line image links
• Underlined text that ends with a footnote will become a hypertext link

http://www.claris.com/products/claris/clarisworks/clarisworks.html

RTFToHTML

Another variation on this theme is rtftohtml. Rich Text Format (RTF) is commonly used to move formatted text from one type of word processor to another. The rtf2html filter takes these intermediate files and converts them to HTML.

ftp://uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu/pub/systems/mac/info-mac/text/html/rtf-to-html-301-ppc.hqx