| 1 | This README provides information about the psiconv HTML4 output generator. |
1 | This README provides information about the psiconv HTML4 output generator. |
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| 3 | Output files generated using the option `-t HTML4' use cascading style sheets |
3 | Output files generated using the options -T HTML use only HTML 4.01 to |
| 4 | (CSS1) with embedded style rules to specify all text formatting information, |
4 | format their text. This has some drawbacks, as several layout options are |
| 5 | rather than using the more commonly-used HTML version 2.0 and 3.2 elements such |
5 | not available in plain HTML. The good news is that almost any browser |
| 6 | as <FONT>, <B>, <CENTER> etc. Output files can thus only be properly displayed |
6 | should accept the generated HTML and render the page in an acceptable way. |
| 7 | on the more recent web-browsers such as Netscape 4.x and IE 4.0, but the output |
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| 8 | is a much more accurate conversion from the original Psion document than is |
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| 9 | possible with HTML 2.0 or 3.2. Browsers that do not support cascading style |
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| 10 | sheets will show the text but no character or paragraph formatting. |
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| 12 | Output files that do not contain user-written HTML constructs should comply |
8 | Note that tabs, headers and footers are not rendered at all. Especially |
| 13 | with W3C's HTML 4.0 Strict DTD [not checked yet; anj 20-Jun-1999]. |
9 | the omission of tabs can cause ugly layouts. Unfortunately, there is not |
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10 | a real solution for this. |
| 15 | The text on the first line of the document header is used as the page title. |
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| 16 | |
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| 17 | Hard page-breaks are converted into a horizontal rule <HR>. Unfortunately in |
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| 18 | Netscape 4.51 any text following in the same paragraph loses its styling, so |
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| 19 | this should really only be used at the end of a paragraph. |
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| 20 | |
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| 21 | Paragraph borders using the types dot-dash and dot-dot-dash are converted to |
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| 22 | dashed and dotted respectively, as these two Psion types do not have a direct |
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| 23 | equivalent in HTML 4.0. However Netscape 4.51 only seems to display borders as |
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| 24 | solid, and in only one color (black). |
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| 25 | |
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| 26 | Netscape also doesn't seem to handle superscript and subscript properly using |
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| 27 | the style sheet approach, so the reason these don't work is due to their bug, |
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| 28 | not mine. |
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| 29 | |
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| 30 | Bullets are supported, but the output is not quite the same as on the Psion. |
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| 31 | HTML lists don't allow you to pick your own character for the bullet like the |
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| 32 | Psion does (you could use an image of the relevent character, but you'd have to |
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| 33 | create it on-the-fly to get the right foreground color for full support), and |
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| 34 | they're not particularly straight-forward to use, so I don't. |
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| 35 | |
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| 36 | Short HTML constructs such as hyperlinks and images can be entered in the Word |
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| 37 | document by using the Psion characters CTRL+139 and CTRL+155 (the single |
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| 38 | angle-quote characters lsaquo and rsaquo), which are converted into < and > |
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| 39 | respectively in the output file. Longer constructs such as tables would |
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| 40 | probably interact with the paragraph formatting to the detriment of both, |
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| 41 | although if kept "on one line" (ie within a single Psion paragraph) they may be |
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| 42 | feasible. |
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| 43 | |
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| 44 | The only major facilities provided by Psion Word that are missing from the |
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| 45 | HTML4 output are support for tabs and embedded objects. Tabs look to be |
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| 46 | impossible to implement properly because HTML does not provide an equivalent |
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| 47 | construct (tables are not suitable for anything other than superficial support. |
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| 48 | The classical typewriter model of tabs needs to know the current print position |
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| 49 | in order to work out which tab stop to align to next; the print position of a |
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| 50 | particular character will depend upon the font in use). Embedded objects need |
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| 51 | the relevent stream formats to be documented and suitable converters |
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| 52 | implemented (embedded Sheet files could be converted into tables, and Sketches |
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| 53 | into inline images). |
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| 54 | |
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| 55 | - Andrew Johnson <anjohnson@iee.org> |
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