This is the home page for "mm2frame", a program for translating
documents using the troff/mm macros into Adobe Framemaker.
This software is released as open source/free software under the
General Public License (GPL).
I've only tested the program on some Unix machines; I don't know what else it
runs on.
This is a VERY simplistic translator.
It does not handle preprocessor commands, such as
tables, equations, or pictures (tbl, eqn, pic), it ignores
many parameters, it ignores all MM variables,
and handles only a limited subset of the MM commands.
Commands the translator doesn't understand are included in the
resulting Framemaker document as regular text.
Nevertheless, this is helpful for documents which use (at least mostly)
a subset of the MM commands. It certainly beats doing it ALL
by hand, and I'm unaware of any other tool that does this.
I've found it handy when I needed it, and over 30 people
that I know of have requested it from me (there may be more people
who have used it, since I don't restrict redistribution).
The translator handles the following MM commands:
italics (\fI, .ft I or .I), bold (\fB, .ft B or .B), normal
(\fP, \fR, .R or .ft R), headers (.H 1-3), dashed and
bold lists (.DL/.BL - .LI - .LE; can't embed them), don't fill/fill (.nf/.fi),
paragraph (.P), and center (.ce no arguments, creates a Title paragraph).
The vertical space commands (.sp, .SP, .SK, and .bp) are interpreted as
new-paragraph commands. The table begin and end commands (.TS/.TE) and
displays (.DS or .DF /.DE) will cause each line to be its own
Framemaker paragraph (as don't fill/fill do) in order to make
translating easier.
Special characters such as double-backslash, angle brackets, dagger,
logical not, em dash, and double quote marks (both directions) are
translated as well.
I'm no longer maintaining this software,
If you're interested in taking over maintenance of it, let me know.
The software includes extensive design documentation, which should
help you get started.
You can look at the
installation instructions and the
user and design documentation.
Most importantly, you can
download the actual
mm2frame software (as a shar archive).
You can go up and look at
my main web site.