Impression to HTML

The original version of this program, !Imp-HTML, was written to enable me to convert long multi-chapter manuals for programs written in Impression into multi-file HTML documents complete with illustrations and an Index file with links to appropriate places in the text. Other people have a similar requirement and have probably found, like me, that the various other tools available to do this just don't do a very good job and require too much editing and alteration to the HTML afterwards. !Ovn-HTML does exactly the same job but for Ovation pro

Companion programs

HTML-DTP takes an HTML file or series of files and converts them into a form suitable for loading into Impression or Ovation Pro.

There is also HTM_link. This is used to insert image tags and links into HTML files and makes this very easy and avoids those silly mistakes we all make when 'hand coding' HTML.

What will it convert?

This program does not attempt to produce a DTP-like HTML file. This is simply not appropriate. HTML is not really a suitable medium for complex layout structures. The original aim was to convert program manuals, where the layout is fairly straightforward, and this it does very well,

Ovn-HTML is not suited to 'fancy' documents with multi-column text running around lots of pictures or where formatting and layout are of prime importance. This can be done in HTML with frames, tables, specifying fonts and font sizes, etc. and some programs, especially on PCs, try to do this. What you usually end up with is a complicated, bloated, HTML structure that will look lovely in its target browser and platform (usually Internet Explorer on a PC) and take ages to render (if it renders at all) in other browsers on other platforms and often look nothing like the original anyway

Briefly, if you have something with more pictures than text, a complex layout and which requires specific fonts or font sizes then this program will not be able to reproduce the document in HTML. If it's a book-like document which is mainly text with or without illustrations then Imp-HTML will almost certainly do it.

How Ovn-HTML works

The program does not use the original Ovation Pro document file. Instead it works with DDL files. You can either use 'Save' or 'Save story' from the main document menu, in either case ensure that 'DDL' is ticked. Ovation Pro will then save either the current text story or the complete document with all its Styles and effects, so headings, bold and italicised text, etc. can be correctly interpreted.

The main difference between save a Story and the entire document is that with the latter no pictures are saved, just the text. This is not normally important, except that it can make the DDL file quite a bit bigger and may take slightly longer to process, as !Ovn-HTML ignores all graphics.

Although !Ovn-HTML ignores all graphics in practice this isn't really a problem. With a printed manual the writer will often include a lot of graphics that are not absolutely necessary simply because it's easy to do so. Too many graphics in an HTML document can make it slow to download or render and, because you don't have such exact control over layout, may make it look very messy.

So, by separating the conversion of the textual part of the document from the graphics you have precise control over what graphics are inserted, where, in what format and whether you wish to apply a scaling factor. For example, with a booklet it may be best to position a graphic slightly before or after the text which refers to it to suit page layout. As the reader will have the pages open before them when reading it won't matter if they have to look across at a facing page to see the picture. With HTML, if the picture is in the same place relative to the text, this might well place it completely out of sight when reading the document on screen.

What needs to be done

There are several main operations that must be performed when converting an Ovation Pro DDL file to HTML;

Any 'special' characters such as the pound sign, < and >, etc. must be converted to their appropriate HTML equivalents.
Bold, italic and centred text must have appropriate tags inserted.
The various styles used in the documents need to be 'mapped' to suitable HTML 'styles' so that headings, sub headings, etc. are given appropriate HTML equivalents.
Create an 'index' which provides links to selected headings and sub headings and break the file up into chapters if required.

Some of these operations will be the same for almost all Ovation Pro files. For example, character translation and bold and italic effects. Others, such as mapping Styles to HTML and when to start a new chapter and which items should appear in the index file may be different for each document.

All of these parameters are set in external text files within !Ovn-HTML so they are not fixed. To cope with different Ovation Pro files you can have many different mapping files (the files which define which Styles are mapped to which HTML tags and which appear in the Index). These can be selected from a menu in !Ovn-HTML which also includes tools to make creating these files very simple.