Wordperfect for (Docbook-) XML - any manuals, tutorials, books?

[Wolfgang Keller]

Hello,

are there any good tutorials, manuals, printed books etc. available
about how to use Wordperfect for editing technical reports in (mostly
Docbook-) XML?

The PDF manual coming with Wordperfect Office is not exactly exhaustive
concerning this subject, the online help doesn't "help" very far either.

In a review of Wordperfect 9 I've read something about a 130-page
"Wordperfect XML book" that was installed somewhere on disk during the
WP Office installation, but if this is still included in WP Office 12,
where is it?

How far/deeply does the "Using Wordperfect 12" book cover XML? It's
just one single chapter out of more than 20, so....

Please note that I'm not looking for generic XML documentation, only
WP-specific things.

TIA,

Sincerely

Wolfgang Keller

 

[Jeff Chimene]

Hello,

are there any good tutorials, manuals, printed books etc. available
about how to use Wordperfect for editing technical reports in (mostly
Docbook-) XML?

The PDF manual coming with Wordperfect Office is not exactly exhaustive
concerning this subject, the online help doesn't "help" very far either.

In a review of Wordperfect 9 I've read something about a 130-page
"Wordperfect XML book" that was installed somewhere on disk during the
WP Office installation, but if this is still included in WP Office 12,
where is it?

How far/deeply does the "Using Wordperfect 12" book cover XML? It's
just one single chapter out of more than 20, so....

Please note that I'm not looking for generic XML documentation, only
WP-specific things.

TIA,

Sincerely

Wolfgang Keller

Hi Wolfgang,

I'll try to give you a an overview. I no longer user WP, but one of my
employees is developing documentation using WP's XML editor.

Circa 1990 (?), WP introduced a validating SGML parser as an extension
of their base product. What you're looking at is a direct descendant of
that WP (formerly extra $, now bundled) extension. WP chose to implement
proprietary data structures to represent an SGML DTD in the WP
environment. Their DTD compiler (whose name I don't remember) takes an
arbitrary DTD and transforms it into structures loaded by the WP editor.
Several of these "compiled" DTDs are supplied with the product. I saw
WP10, and it had DocBook v3.something. I hope WP12 at least has DocBook
4.something, but I couldn't say for sure. You have that DTD compiler. It
might be a stand-alone image, or available as part of the XML GUI
sub-system. The compiler also knows about the XML catalog. The take-home
point is that you can't just drop a DTD reference into your XML catalog
and expect WP use it directly.

When you start an XML document, you will have to choose a "root node"
For example, our root node is "glossary" From the root node, all
possible nodes will be displayed in a drop-down list box.

You can also customize the display of the document in the WP editor
space. For obvious reasons, this display won't be exported to your XML
instance. However, it can improve readability during the editing
process. I'd avoid this customization while learning the basics of the
WP XML editor.

WP's XML editor is actually very easy to learn. Start with a simple
document (I'd advise DocBook Article) and go from there. Also, try
loading a DocBook instance to see what WP does with it. You'll probably
have to use a down-version FPI (see above) to map that FPI to the
compiled DTDs that came with your WP version.

As I recall, there's a dialog box for editing attributes.

Reveal codes isn't particularly helpful when editing XML documents.

hth,
jec