17.1.2 Clarifying your purpose for creating DocBook output
Mif2Go supports two general purposes for creating DocBook output from FrameMaker:
Migrate legacy content to DocBook XML
Export current content to DocBook as needed.
A third potential purpose might be to use DocBook as an intermediate step in converting documents from unstructured to structured FrameMaker. You could use Mif2Go to produce DocBook XML from your unstructured files, then bring the results back into structured FrameMaker. This should be a lot faster than developing FrameMaker conversion tables.
Migrate legacy content to DocBook XML
When you migrate legacy content from FrameMaker to DocBook XML, completeness is less important than it would be if you retain source in FrameMaker. After converting your document you edit in an XML environment. Even validity can be relaxed, if your existing document does not quite measure up. As long as the XML is well formed, you can use XSLT to make adjustments. You can even run XSLT from within Mif2Go. See §34.4 Executing operating-system commands.
Export current content to DocBook as needed
To continue using FrameMaker as source, and export content to DocBook as needed, you must interpolate into the DocBook output any data required by DocBook but not needed in FrameMaker. You can use FrameMaker markers or dedicated conditional paragraph formats for file-specific data, and Mif2Go configuration settings for general data items such as book revision level. You do not need XSLT for this purpose. In fact, you should not need XSLT at all, unless your FrameMaker document does not follow the same sequence of items that DocBook expects.
With Mif2Go you can continue to write in FrameMaker, and get a matching DocBook set any time you need one. And you can produce DocBook output from unstructured as well as from structured FrameMaker.
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