HTML Editors & Translators

HTML Translators

HTML Editors | HTML Translators | Going Further

HTML translators (or HTML converters) are computer programs that take a document formatted in a particular way by some other wordprocessing or typesetting program and attempt to translate it automatically into an HTML document, with formatting dictated by the format of the original document. These can be general-purpose translators, or designed for translation of more specific objects.

In the former category we may cite the electronic textbook of the Computational Science Education Project. This is a comprehensive Web-based textbook that was largely translated from original LateX documents (LaTeX is a widely used typesetting program in scientific and mathematical circles) into HTML using the translator LaTeX2HTML. In the latter category, we may cite XTML which converts tables made in Microsoft Excel to HTML table format.

HTML translators are primarily of use when one has a large volume of documents already in an electronic format other than HTML that one would like to put on the Web. For new material, we suggest that direct coding of HTML or the use of HTML editors will produce higher quality documents. Thus, we do not discuss HTML translators further, but link you to a listing of HTML translators and converters that you can pursue on your own.

We also mention in this context Adobe Acrobat, which is commercial software that produces PDF (Portable Document Format) files. These files are publishable on the Web (they usually have a .pdf extension in their file name), can be produced from a variety of other formats, and can preserve the formatting of the original document from which they were converted. They are not HTML files so they require a special reader (Acrobat Reader), which is available for free from Adobe for a variety of platforms. Thus, you can read PDF files on the Web if you download and install the free Acrobat Reader for your computer, but you must purchase the commercial Acrobat software if you wish to produce PDF documents.

(Note: the link above for the electronic textbook of the Computational Science Education Project is to a mirror site for the book. The original site and its primary backup are no more. So the URLs for these two locations on the CSEP home page should now be ignored.)