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

When I thought of this many years ago, it seemed like something that someone would have already done. But, as far as I can tell no one had, 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 currently only fully supports MIF7 and earlier, but it should work fine for later MIF versions. If you're using special features in later versions of FM, you may need to add those items to the DTD. Information about the logic behind the general conversion is included in the DTD.

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 XSL stylesheets, 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?

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.