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October 26, 2010
Question

converting RST markup to Framemaker formatting?

  • October 26, 2010
  • 2 replies
  • 487 views

We're in the early stages of converting our product's user manual to Framemaker, and are running into a couple roadblocks.

Our source documents were written using a customized form of reStructuredText (RST), which is rendered to PDF via Latex.

We'd like to be able to convert the RST markup into formatting that Framemaker can understand. We've tried a few Latex-to-Framemaker converters with limited success, probably because we've tweaked the RST somewhat.

Ideally, there would be a one-click conversion option from RST-to-Framemaker.  Barring this, we'd like a way to use search-and-replace (regex is fine) to find arbitrary RST markup and change it into Framemaker markup.

The Find/Change tool seems to allow you to change text to Character Formatting.  But this is only part of the battle.  We also need to be able to convert to things like chapter headings, index entries, links, etc. etc.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Dennis

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    2 replies

    Arnis Gubins
    Inspiring
    October 26, 2010

    Dennis,

    You might be better off trying to extract your content from the PDF and re-tagging in FM using good, clean templates.

    Otherwise, try using regex-based converters such as TextPipePro and tag your content using FrameMaker's MML markup. This should minimize the amount of clean-up that you have to do within FM.

    Inspiring
    October 26, 2010

    I think I'd initiate a conversation with Rick Quatro or another FrameScript guru to get a series of conversion scripts run up.

    Rick is the author of an enhanced Find-And-Replace utility, which may be something he could build in or add on to.

    rick@frameexpert.com