MIFML .. an XML representation of a FrameMaker MIF file.

When I thought of this a couple years ago, it seemed like something that someone would have already done. But, as far as I can tell no one has, so I did. I'm not sure how useful this will be, but it seemed like a good idea, so after a couple years of half-hearted work, I finally got the MIFML DTD in reasonable shape (feel free to read the comments in the DTD for more information).

This is a work in progress, and I'd like some input from others before calling it close to complete. If you have any interest in FrameMaker, MIF, and XML, please download the DTD and accompanying MIF to MIFML (and back) converter and let me know how it works for you.

» MIFML-Converter Revision History

With the right stylesheets (XSL), you should be able to generate all kinds of documents from a MIFML file. Some possible transformations are ..

• Structured FrameMaker files from unstructured MIF
• Online HTML documentation
• HTML Help or WinHelp
• FM > MIF > MIFML > (transformation) > MIF > FM
• Other ideas?

I'll be posting some simple transformations here in coming weeks/months .. if you develop any you'd like to share, feel free to send them to me!

Oh .. there are two versions of a MIFML file, "full" and "partial". The full version contains everything that is found in a MIF (file or book), and the partial version contains only the following major sections: VariableFormats, XRefFormats, AFrames, Tbls, TextFlow, and Math. A partial MIFML file is about half the size of the full version. The current version of the command-line converter now creates both full and partial MIFML files.

You can use the FileTools plugin to export and import MIFML files directly from FrameMaker.