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Subject:FP98 and HTML Transit From:Matt Danda <mdanda2 -at- YAHOO -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 22 Jun 1998 06:57:13 -0700
In response to the posting asking who uses FrontPage98 and HTML Transit:
We are using FrontPage98 to create intranet web sites that are
supposed to replace our archaic paper-based documentation system.
We have ordered HTML Transit in order to facilitate the conversion
from Word source documents to HTML. Our perception is that HTML
Transit performs the tasks that the "Save As...HTML" feature of Word
is *supposed* to accomplish.
Unfortunately, this is not an easy task! As of 9:30AM on June 22, I'm
not convinced that the technology is quite ready. The HTML docs look
horrible when printed, and the WORD docs look horrible when converted
to HTML. So we have to pick one format over the other, or apply
extensive manual labor to ensure that both online and for-print
documents are nicely formatted. Otherwise, we will have to accept, for
the time being, an embarrasingly poor standard for document formatting.
Alas, I hear that the next version of MS-Office will integrate HTML at
a far deeper level, and not just at the superficial "Save as...HTML"
so-called feature that is currently causing so many headaches.
This single-sourcing HTML/Word stuff has got me so annoyed that I
would really rather wait another year until the HTML integration is
far more advanced. I've researched CSS and XML at a basic level, but
get discouraged at even the slightest possibility that users of older
Netscape and IE browsers might have problems. Some of our users are
pretty stupid when it comes to the technology on their desks (and some
of these people hold very high-ranking positions), and we can't
guarantee that they'll have the newest browsers and plug-ins and such.
So for now I am doing a great deal of manual reformatting and
converting in order to fill in the technology gap, as we gradually
evolve into a single-source document shop.
