On Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:25:17 +0200, Kristof Zelechovski
<[email protected]> wrote:
Automatic conversion from Microsoft Word to HTML is doomed to fail
because the document models and the requirements are different.
The best you can get is a tree of DIVs and SPANs with Word-
specific classes. Anything better needs a serious and thoughtful
remake by the editor.
This is an oversimplification to the point of being misleading.
There are many ways to use Word, and many people and organisations with
haf a clue use it in such a way that automatic conversion can be
relatively easily used to generate highly semantically rich and valid
markup - much better than the sort of tripe one typically finds on the Web
today.
Word enabled the clear semantic markup of documents before HTML even
existed, and people who use it like that are in a good position to produce
HTML that is much better quality than most developers come up with. It
also enables presentation-driven markup to be converted automatically to
make the underlying semantics explicit (something that virtually no HTML
tool outside those which convert from another input format manages to do).
This stuff is not rocket science, either. It is the sort of thing that was
routine more than a decade ago when people started to use HTML as well as,
or instead of, Word and similar formats.
cheers
Chaals
--
Charles McCathieNevile Opera Software, Standards Group
je parle français -- hablo español -- jeg lærer norsk
http://my.opera.com/chaals Try Opera: http://www.opera.com
