text to html

[Janina Sajka]

Alex Snow writes:
> 
> I don't see the accessibility issue with converting text to html. could
> someone please enlighten me?

Well, having raised the spectre, I'll try.

When I read "text," I believe you mean plain ASCII. If you actually mean
something else, well then I guess it isn't really text anymore than a
web page is text.

So, plain text is lacking in any semantic or presentational markup. All
you have is the alpha-numeric character set, capital and lower case
letters, numerals, and punctuation marks. Any presentation layout is
achieved with tabs, spaces, and carriage return/line feeds.

HTML, though certainly lacking the level of semantic and structural
tagging available in its progenitor, SGML, is nevertheless significantly
richer. It defines elements for structural and presentational constructs
that go well beyond what is possible in plain ASCII.

So, the problem is simply this: How do you ask a machine to put
meaningful markup into a document which has none? Ultimately, you can
only hack at it. If the content you will tag is nothing but text in
paragraphs, as in a novel, you can actually do pretty well. And, if
you're always marking up the same kind of content, you can write script
that will do a decent job.

But, you can't expect a generic script to access any and all kinds of
plain text files and do a decent job. Not because it's theoretically
impossible, but because it isn't meaningful to take this approach for
large amounts of data. It's far smarter to transform one kind of markup
into another. As long as the source is richer than html, properly marked
in the first instance, and reliably
consistant, the output can be excellent. 

And why does proper markup matter in the first instance? Well there are
several reasons, not the least being accessibility for people with a
wide range of disabilities. For this part of the story, I will simply
refer you to the W3C.

> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Janina Sajka" <janina at rednote.net>
> To: <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Monday, August 25, 2003 6:35 PM
> Subject: Re: text to html
> 
> 
> > Alex,
> >
> > This just isn't right.
> >
> > Do you realize what kind of accessibility barriers you're throwing up
> > for people with this kind of approach? It rather raises the serious
> > question of whether you mean to walk the walk, or just talk the talk.
> >
> > Yes, Word puts crap into html under the Save As option. But why is that
> > your only other option?
> >
> > If you have to use Word, there's software that will do better.
> >
> >
> > Alex Snow writes:
> > > From: "Alex Snow" <alex_snow at gmx.net>
> > >
> > > I was just looking for a tool that'll add stuff like <br> tags and
> stuff. I
> > > needed it for converting textfiles into html that I could use on
> > > webpages...I used to use word for that but It inserts a lot of useless
> crap
> > > and the files are quite large.
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> >
> > --
> >
> > Janina Sajka, Director
> > Technology Research and Development
> > Governmental Relations Group
> > American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
> >
> > Email: janina at afb.net Phone: (202) 408-8175
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> >
> 
> 
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-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina at afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175