Converting unstructured to structured FrameMaker

[Daniel Emory]

--- Pat Christenson <pxenson at comcast.net> wrote:
> I have a large project coming up that involves
> converting unstructured 
> FrameMaker docs to structured FrameMaker (7.1 on
> Windows). Does anyone 
> know of any helpful websites or documentation to get
> through this as 
> quickly and efficiently as possible?
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First, you have to closely examine the target document
set. Were they all created with the same version of
the same template. If not, the conversion cost is
likely to escalate exponentially as a function of the
amount of difference in the templates.

Second, did the authors adhere to the template, with
minimal format overrides, and consistent application
of the designated format for each level of structure.
If not, conversion cost will go way up.

Third, are there major instances where unstructured
tags are used at many different levels of structure.
This will result in a one-to-many relationship for a
given tag (i.e., the same tag must be converted to
more than one structural element). If this is the
case, conversion is much more difficult and costly.

If the document set passes these tests, it is unlikely
that the structure inferrable from the tags will
closely match the structure defined by the target
EDD/DTD. In that case, it is advisable to perform the
conversion table operation by creating an "interim"
EDD which closely matches the tagging of the
unstructured docs, with element names matching the
corresponding tags in the target EDD/DTD.

Once the conversion using the "interim" EDD is
completed, you import into those converted documents
the FrameMaker template file for the target EDD. The
resulting document will now be full of structure
errors which you correct (mainly) by wrapping elements
of the "interim" EDD in higher-level elements defined
in the target EDD.