Migrating Word to HTML? What's your purpose?

[Geoff Hart <Geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

Richard Dominguez's company <<...is in the process of
migrating a large number of manuals to its web site...
documentation... is revised every four months. We're leaning
toward MS FrontPage as the primary tool to convert Word
material, but I'm not satisfied that this is the correct tool to
use. We have also considered FrameMaker and Word97 (in
which we currently produce all our documentation).>>

I've heard enough bad things about Word's HTML export to
mistrust it as an HTML editor, unless you're working in
ASCII mode and coding the tags yourself. I don't know
anything about opening Word documents in FrontPage,
though I'd expect that in time this will become the tool of
choice for working with Word documents. It's taken several
years, but MS Office apps are now reasonably well
integrated, and FrontPage will surely follow suit. I don't know
whether you want to wait that long, though.

<<Requirements are to maintain: cross-reference links to
other manuals, reasonably good definition of imbedded
screen shots, simple styles, legible visio material as well as
legible MS Word equations, and the capabilities to search and
print.>>

That raises an important two-part question that you need to
answer before you go any further. Part the first: If the
documents will be used solely or primarily online (i.e., the
Web), why not distribute updated WinHelp files instead? The
results are probably better from the user perspective. Part the
second: If they're not intended for online use, why are you
wasting your time converting them to HTML? Optimize them
for printing.

If after answering these questions you do opt for Web
documents, then HTML Transit might be an excellent choice.
It allows you extensive customization of how Word's style
tags convert into HTML. I've heard very good things about it.

Another obvious choice is to investigate Adobe Acrobat,
which has the additional advantage of letting your users print
the documentation properly if they need printed output;
HTML printing is still (to be kind) primitive, and won't
support the way typical users use manuals. (That is, it's more
like online help than a printed manual. Which medium is
most appropriate for your users?)

With PDF, you'd simply duplicate your printed guides,
without any attempt to make them suitable for online use, on
the assumption (and you should test this assumption) that
users will print the pages they need rather than using your
Web site as a weird kind of online help. To put the PDFs on
the Web, simply develop an HTML "table of contents" that
would let you link to the various manuals. Break the manuals
up into bite-size chunks (e.g., by chapter or procedure) to
minimize download time. I believe that the current version of
Acrobat will let you build hyperlinks from a PDF page to a
URL, but don't quote me on this; it strikes me as kludgy even
if it does work. (Can anyone confirm whether this is an
option?)


--Geoff Hart @8^{)}     Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

"Who needs rhetorical questions?"--Anon.

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