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1 - Introduction
1.2 - A solution
We have attempted to meet the demands for having both printed and WWW versions of a document by developing a strategy based on FrameMaker, a desktop publishing package from Frame Technology Corporation, and the configurable translator WebMaker, written by the authors, to generate a WWW version of a paper document formatted with FrameMaker. This strategy was first conceived to satisfy our own documentation needs [2]. The demand for a more generic solution was growing alongside the growth of the Web itself. WebMaker is the result of a generalisation of our strategy.
With the combination of FrameMaker and WebMaker it is possible to derive paper and WWW versions of a document, without compromise to either, from a single master source which would consist of:
- A FrameMaker document (single file) or a FrameMaker book (multifile).
- A configurable rules file for the mapping of the content body into HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the native language of WWW.
As there are no restrictions made on the layout and structure of the FrameMaker document, full advantage may be taken of FrameMaker's page formatting features to obtain the desired printed version. Similarly, as the rules file for mapping the content body into HTML is highly configurable, a WWW version of the document taking good advantage of the different functionalities of the medium may automatically be derived.
Such a scheme based on FrameMaker and WebMaker also offers the added advantages of:
- The FrameMaker WYSIWYG authoring interface with built-in drawing tools, spelling checker, numerous import and export filters, etc.
- The easy maintenance of unwieldy WWW multi-file document webs.
- FrameMaker documents that were originally written with no WWW intentions may be translated simply by adding configuration information for the mapping into HTML.
First International WWW Conference, May 1994BR, MR - CERN PTG - 31 May 1994
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