importing XML

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meggs
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importing XML

Post by meggs »

Hello there,

just one short question: how do i import XML-files into Flare? We´ve got several projects done in Help & Manual and would like to turn it to Flare. Any suggestions (not via Word, this is not satisfying)

thx
alaltenburg
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Re: importing XML

Post by alaltenburg »

One idea would be to create a new topic in Flare. Then right click on the topic and open in xml editor. Then you could just copy and paste the text in. You would have to bring in any pictures separately.
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meggs
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Re: importing XML

Post by meggs »

Thanks for your reply,

but the the result also isn´t satisfying. Flare can´t handle the tags, only pure text is displayed.

other ideas?
RamonS
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Re: importing XML

Post by RamonS »

Can you load the project in Help&Manual and create a WebHelp of any kind? You could then import the XHTML files assuming they have valid markup. XML is a loose term just describing a set of rules the file format has to follow, but what the contents are is up the one creating the XML. That is why Flare won't understand what is in the XML files in regards to formatting.
How many files do you need to import? If it is just a few dozen I'd go and do it the hard way manually. That will be a grueling task, but it will be quicker than coming up with a tricked out process that produces halfway satisfying results.
Uuhm, you could also create CHM and then decompile that to get to the HTML files.
Richard Ferrell
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Re: importing XML

Post by Richard Ferrell »

if you can save the files as Xhtml then You can drop these files into Flare and have anaylzer do a batch convert of them
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KevinDAmery
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Re: importing XML

Post by KevinDAmery »

RamonS wrote:Uuhm, you could also create CHM and then decompile that to get to the HTML files.
The other advantage of this method is it should automatically create a TOC for you in Flare. It may also bring in things like your index, alias, etc.
Until next time....
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Kevin Amery
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ENJ
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Re: importing XML

Post by ENJ »

I've got a similar problem. I have no idea what the XML docs were created in (the developer who created them is no longer around). I am able to import the XML files into Flare but when you view them, you cannot edit the files and apply a stylesheet. The XML files consist mainly of tables. The content is still grouped (somewhat) in the tables but the formatting is obviously wrong.
Unless I recreate each file (at least 50 of them), I can't seem to make them look right.
doc_guy
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Re: importing XML

Post by doc_guy »

If you want to use the XML files in Flare, you need to convert them into a format that Flare recognizes. For example, the following is legitimate XML markup:

Code: Select all

<xml>
 <person>
  <name>DocGuy</name>
  <posts count="1553" />
  <location>Crossroads of the West</location>
  <job title="Technical Writer" />
 </person>
</xml>
But how do you expect Flare to import that content?

Even if I have the following XML:

Code: Select all

<xml>
 <topic>
   <content>
     <p>This is the content of my topic.</p>
   </content>
  </topic>
  <topic>
   <content>
    <p>This is the content in a second topic.</p> 
   </content>
  </topic>
</xml>
You can recognize how this topic is to be organized, but how is Flare supposed to guess?

The reality is that you need to transform the content to be valid XHTML. Then you can import it into Flare. One way of doing this is hiring a programmer to write an XSLT transform that will convert the existing content into valid XHTML. Or create a different output from the original help files (as discussed earlier in this thread) and then use THAT format to get the files into Flare.

But it is too much to expect that Flare will take any old XML file and assume that Flare will know how to map the tags to Flare's schema.
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