DOC/RTF to ConTeXt via XML [was: Re: ConTeXt to RTF Conversion]

[Idris Samawi Hamid <ishamid@lamar.colostate.edu>]

Thank you so much, Christopher, for your detailed answer!

>===== Original Message From Christopher Creutzig <christopher@creutzig.de> 
=====
>Idris Samawi Hamid wrote:
>> Would it be possible to define an xml format for the journal so that I
>> could more easily process both ConTeXt/LaTeX articles as well as the
>> docs and rtfs I generally receive? Is this more work than it's worth?
>> It's a humanities journal, so little-to-no math.

> If your most pressing problem is the variety of data formats you
>receive articles in, then no, xml won't help.  You'd still need some way
>of transforming the articles to the format of your choice.  That being
>said, XML may be a very good intermediate step from Word or rtf to
>ConTeXt, if only because OpenOffice has pretty advanced import filters
>and stores its data in a straightforward xml format that should be easy
>to transform, assuming you start with a sufficiently rich set of
>predefined formats and somehow get people to either use them (fat
>chance, I know)

fat chance, perhaps, but maybe...(see below)

>or have them be sufficiently different that you can
>automatically or at least semi-automatically classify the author's
>formatting to your presets.  In really simple cases (e.g., pure prose)
>you may get away with accepting HTML and converting that.

Paul Tremblay's pages seem very useful in this regard:

http://getfo.sourceforge.net/context_xml/contents.html

Question: Is it possible to design a doc or rtf template that Open Office can 
convert to a sane, consistent xml format? If the Tremblay approach is rich 
enough, that would solve a lot of problems! Here is my idea:

1. Give each author a doc/rtf template for formatting their article;
2. Use OpenOffice to convert to xml;
3. Use the Tremblay method (have not tried it yet) to process this in Context.

Question: Does the entire journal have to be in programmed in xml or can 
ConTeXt process xml locally? For example, I may have my own article done in 
COnTeXt mixed with other articles done in rtf=>xml.

Any other advice (and/or pitfalls to watch for) would be appreciated. This 
sounds very promising!

Best
Idris

============================
Professor Idris Samawi Hamid
Department of Philosophy
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523