Re: footnotes

The original poster spoke of a legal document with footnotes to be converted
to HTML from another format.  I would handle such a situation as follows:

1) Convert the document to XML initially, inventing XML tags to clearly
indicate footnotes as such and to show their relation to the text.

2) Write a program to convert the XML into one or more HTML documents that
will look reasonable in current user agents.  Give the URL of this script to
potential readers of the document.

3) If printing is desired and the HTML version is printer-hostile, have the
conversion program output a different, print-only version (say with all
footnotes at the end of a single, long document).

4) As user agents evolve, modify the program to make better use of CSS and
other innovations.  In fact, a CSS option can be added to the script
without losing the original non-CSS version.  The same script
could also generate versions for palmtops, screen readers, etc.

With this method you can have a library of legal documents and a single
script that formats them as appropriate for the current technology.

My $0.02,
Jeff de La Beaujardiere

Received on Tuesday, 9 June 1998 10:25:58 UTC