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Comments on usage



!meDDLe works best when the OvationPro source document for the DDL input file uses Styles exclusively (rather than Styles and Effects) and where those Styles are fairly straightforward and, where appropriate, properly nested.

!meDDLe is reasonably error-trapped to avoid crashing when it meets something unexpected or badly structured, but it might then produce unexpected or incomplete results.

If you experience problems it is often worthwhile to examine the OPro source of your DDL file. In particular, check carefully the application of any Styles designated for the key actions ‘Html links’, ‘Html markers’ and ‘New page’. For example, have any of these Styles been applied to text that has subsequently been deleted but the Style now applies to a null string? Does the Style intended to be applied just to the title text of a new ‘page’ actually ‘hang over’ the previous ‘page’ as well?

If your source document has been prepared over some time or has seen much editing it is probably worthwhile to clear all Styles and Effects from it and carefully re-apply just the ones you want. The reason for this is that it is quite usual for a much-edited source document to have Styles badly nested and also applied in no longer relevant places. As !meDDLe will faithfully seek to apply your mapping choices to every instance of the Styles it finds, an ‘untidy’ source document can lead directly to unexpected output results.

The order in which Styles are applied in the original OvationPro document can be important to !meDDLe’s output - particularly in cases where the HTML mapping seeks to replicate indented paragraphs with the use of the HTML code ‘blockquote’ and the indented paragraph also contains other mapped Styles e.g. a Bold Style within an indented paragraph. In these cases it is important to apply the paragraph indenting Style before any other Styles are applied to the indented text. Otherwise there is a high risk that the HTML output will not appear as intended.

It is also worthwhile to think first about how you want the HTML conversion to appear to the user. It is probably unlikely that you will actually want a direct copy of the Impression/Ovation version - headers/footers are a prime example (remove them if you can, particularly if they contain graphics).

Further, you will want your individual HTML ‘pages’ to load reasonably quickly, so it is important to ensure that no ‘page’ involves a large download - which means that you might want the output to be split into a larger number smaller ‘pages’ if you are using graphics.

Please note that the first output ‘page’ (apart from the Contents, where appropriate) will always start at the start of the source document, irrespective of which output option is chosen. This means that if you wish to use the New page at Key Style option and the source document has an overall title before the paragraph formatting starts (like this Manual) you may get the first page break immediately after the title. There is a simple way around this - see Example of use later.

The usefulness of the Tabs? option will vary from document to document and it is simply a matter of ‘suck it and see’. It probably works best when the <tab> key was used only at the beginning of a line in the original document.

Apart from a very few ‘reserved’ characters (and a few ‘entities’) - see How it works later - !meDDLe does not (yet?) attempt to convert all HTML ‘entities’ into their special codes. The main reason for this is that the browsers I have tried do not seem to have any trouble with handling the ‘entities’ and so laziness got the vote. It would probably not be difficult to incorporate these conversions but it might slow things down.

Choosing to include a Contents page is usually well worthwhile. Special steps have been taken to avoid blank links on this page and you may sometimes find a link with the text “(Dummy link to Section X)”. This avoids a blank link which would otherwise have occurred and this event is almost certainly the result of an empty ‘New page’ Style existing somewhere - which should be corrected.

Rightly or wrongly, !meDDLe expects that the very first ‘paragraph’ (i.e. up to the first <return>) on any new ‘page’ - including at the start of the document - is a typical heading - rather than a straightforward text paragraph extending over many lines. And it will be a list of each ‘page’ heading which will appear on the Contents page.
For this reason, !meDDLe will deliberately curtail this text if it exceeds the length set in the !Run file by the system variable meDDLe$MaxContentsLength (see ‘User-changeable system variables’ above). If this happens, the omitted text will be reported to you in a window at the end of the processing - for your action, as desired.

Even though they are automatically extracted and converted into files which end up in Pics, it is a pity that non-embedded pictures cannot be fully handled at the moment. The problem is that I have not yet found a suitable way to choose a location for such pictures in the HTML output - because, by definition, they are not located by reference to text position in the original document. However, it is a very simple process indeed for the user subsequently to decide the best location himself/herself and to add the necessary link in the right place in the right HTML page. Copying and editing one of the embedded-graphics links would make it even easier.

Finally, as indicated elsewhere, !meDDLe is by no means perfect. It is, for instance, possible to get some incorrect results when many different Styles exist around the place where a new HTML ‘page’ is started. In essence, the simpler and ‘cleaner’ the source document, the better !meDDLe will like it.

I’d welcome your comments on any problems you find and also on how things might be improved.




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