[Framers] OT: Word to XML

[Roger Shuttleworth]

Hello Framers

This is somewhat off-topic as it doesn't directly concern FrameMaker 
(though it could). Nevertheless, I know there are people on this list 
who are much more knowledgeable than I, so here goes...

I have a set of well over 100 Word documents (I know...) that I would 
like to convert to simple XML (not the kind that Word exports!). They 
are all four pages long and pretty consistent in terms of structure, and 
paragraph styles are used for the most part, though not character 
styles. If you were me, what methods would you look at?

I have used structured FM for years and am familiar with DITA and 
DocBook. I know that there is a route from Word doc > FrameMaker > 
Structured FrameMaker > XML that would involve creating a conversion 
table, a DTD, and a structured application. I have done that in the 
past, though it was a few years ago. I realise that it would mean a lot 
of up-front work to get it working, as well as ensuring that styles are 
used fully and consistently in my source documents.

But is that what you would recommend?

I have FM11. Would a later version of FM add anything to that?

Or is there a non-FrameMaker route that I am unaware of? I have done a 
web search but not come up with much. Is there a route via HTML or XHTML?

What about MIF2Go? I understand that it still works with FM11, but is it 
capable of converting to XML?

Any and all ideas would be welcome. I value your input as it will help 
me avoid a lot of dead ends.

Roger