
    Miftran v0.3p1						10.Jun.94

    Miftran is a general purpose MIF (Framemaker's Maker Interchange
    Format) translation program.  It was designed primarily to translate
    to HTML, but is flexible enough that it could be used for other
    translations.

    The latest version of miftran is most likely to be found in
       ftp://ftp.alumni.caltech.edu/pub/mcbeath/web/miftran/

    Miftran has the following features:

	- Written in C (plus a few small sh scripts), easy to compile.

	- Externally configurable with a single configuration (RC) file,
	  which can be customized for each MIF file to be translated.
	  ALL output text is controlled by contents of RC file.

	- Based on paragraph and font tags.

	- Generates Table of Contents (based on chapters, etc.) and Index
	  (based on Index markers), controlled by configuration file.

	- Accepts a single MIF input file, but can produce multiple
	  output files (e.g. split by chapters, sections, etc.),
	  based on configuration file.

	- Converts cross-references and hypertext links to HTML links,
	  based on configuration file.

	- String substitution allows converting special characters.
	  Default template includes German and French characters.

	- Handles anchored frames for inline images (but does not do
	  image format conversion).

	- Handles simple variables (without <$xxx> stuff).

	- For advanced users, the C source can be relatively easily
	  customized to recognize additional MIF constructs.

	- Freely redistributable with an MIT/X11 style copyright.
	  You can even put it into a commercial product and sell it if
	  you want, as long as you preserve and acknowledge our copyright.

    Miftran has the following limitations:

	- Only handles single MIF files.  If you have multiple MIF files,
	  you will have to process them one at a time.  You can probably
	  make this work by munging the html/Makefile and the sh scripts.

	- Does not do format conversions of images in anchored frames.

	- Does not handle embedded image files.

	- Does not handle conditional text.

	- Does not handle <$xxx> stuff in variables.

	- No special handling of tables.

	- Does not handle paragraph and font formatting based on anything
	  other than tags.

    To compile and test miftran:
    1. Do a "make" in this directory.  This will build the miftran program.
    2. Cd to the html directory and do another "make".  This will create
       a set of HTML files, one per chapter, for the miftran.mif manual.
    3. In the html directory, do a "make diff" to compare the html/*.html
       files against the htmlref/*.html files.  They should be identical.
    4. Run your favorite HTML browser starting at TOC.html.

    To use miftran on your own document:
    1. Create a working directory for your html files.
    2. Copy html/Makefile and html/miftran.rc file to your directory.
    3. Edit your Makefile, set MIF_SOURCE and MIFTRAN_DIR.
    4. Edit your miftran.rc, set infilename to point to your mif file.
    5. Do a "make font.list pgf.list" in your directory; this will make a
       list of font and paragraph tags used in your document.
    6. Edit your miftran.rc to change the <tagalias> lines to refer to
       your font and paragraph tags as desired.
    7. Do a "make" in your directory.
    8. Run your favorite HTML browser starting at your TOC.html.
    9. Customize your miftran.rc as desired and redo step 5-7 as needed.

    Miftran has been compiled and run on the following machines:
	Dec Alpha OSF1
	Decstation Ultrix 4.2a
	HP7000 HPUX 9.01
	Linux 1.0.8 with gcc 2.5.8
	NeXT NextStep3.2
	SCO ODT 3.0
	SGI IRIX 5.1
	Sparc Solaris 2.2 with gcc
	Sparc Solaris 2.3
	Sparc SunOS 4.1.3

    If you use miftran, please send me email and let me know about it.
    If you are using a machine or OS that is not in the above list,
    please let me know, especially if there were any changes required
    to get it to work.

    Author: Jim McBeath
    jimmc@globes.com  jimmc@eskimo.com  jimmc@alumni.caltech.edu
    http://eskinews.eskimo.com/~jimmc
