SILConverters — Obsolete version

Microsoft Word/COM support for TECkit, CC, and ICU

Answer: The most likely solution is to make sure that you check the “Include footnotes” checkbox under “Scope of Change” in the Data Conversion dialog box.

Otherwise, it may be that you have inserted them as endnotes. If you use the Word command to convert endnotes to footnotes, the macro will convert SILDoulos IPA93 text to Unicode. (But it won't convert the characters you inserted using Insert / Symbol). Then you can run the Word command to convert the footnotes back to endnotes.

This Word command is Insert / Reference / Footnotes then click  Convert . This will convert your endnotes to footnotes if you have endnotes, and footnotes to endnotes if you have footnotes.

Answer: The easiest way is to open your legacy Publisher document. Go to the first text box containing data you wish to convert. Click Edit / Edit Story in MS Word. Wait a minute for it to copy your data and open Word. Do your Data Conversion as you would normally do. Then click the small x to close the document. It will then take the converted data back to your Publisher document and display it there.

Repeat for each text box.

Answer: SFConv is a command-line utility which can convert sfm files to and from Unicode. Various sfms can be converted with different mapping files.

• Before you start, you should make a note of all the sfms in your data that use the IPA93 font.
  • If you also use inline markers (such as “|” you should make a note of those as well).
• Download the appropriate version of TECkit (Windows or Mac). These instructions assume a Windows installation.
• Under C:Program Files create a folder called TECkit.
• Unzip the file you downloaded to this folder.
• Download and unzip the IPA93 mapping file (put it in the C:Program FilesTECkit folder).
• Download and the IPA93-map.xml (below) file (put it in the C:Program FilesTECkit folder).

IPA93-map.xml file for use with SFConv Lorna A. Priest, 2006-02-10 Download "IPA93-map.xml", XML document, 1KB [3270 downloads]

Open this file in a text editor. Because your data will have different sfms and inline markers you will probably need to adapt it.

To understand the file, look at this part of the code:

<sfMarkers escape=""
          chars="abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz_ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"
          mapping="ISO-8859-1">
     <marker name="ph" mapping="silipa93"/>
     <marker name="pm" mapping="silipa93"/>
</sfMarkers>

The first line tells TECkit what characters form sfms and what mapping to use to convert the text of the markers to Unicode (i.e. I don’t want to change “p‿ to an IPA93 character). Then there is an exception list. So <marker name="ph" mapping="silipa93"/> is saying that for the sfm ph the silipa93 mapping file should be used. (It should also be used for pm.) You need to add a line for each of the sfms in your data that use the IPA93 encoding. If you have other sf markers that need a different mapping file, you can add another line, following this example, and use the appropriate sf marker (without the backslash) and mapping file name.

Note: SFconv converts all the data in the file at one sweep, not just the IPA fields that you define. The default mapping tells it what to do with the rest of the file.

Next we will look at inline markers.

Take a look at the following lines in the xml file.

<inlineMarkers escape="|" start="{" end="}"
          chars="abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz_ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"
          mapping="ISO-8859-1">
     <marker name="en" mapping="ISO-8859-1"/>
     <marker name="ip" mapping="silipa93"/>
</inlineMarkers>

The first line tells TECkit what characters form inline markers and what mapping to use to convert the text of the markers to Unicode (i.e. I don’t want to change “|ip” to an IPA93 character). (You can change the “|” to another character, but do not try to use < or >.) Then there is an exception list. So <marker name="ip" mapping="silipa93"/> is saying that for text after the inline marker |ip the silipa93 mapping file should be used. You need to add a line for each of the inline markers in your data that use the IPA93 encoding. If you have other inline markers that need a different mapping file, you can add another line, following this example, and use the appropriate inline marker (without the “|”) and mapping file name.

Finally, to do the actual conversion from 8-bit to Unicode (UTF8), we need to go to the Command Prompt (MS-DOS) and type this (you will need to add the right path, depending on where you have put sfconv.exe):

"Program FilesTECkitsfconv" -8u -utf8 -c IPA93-map.xml -i filename.sfm -o filename-utf8.txt

filename-utf8.txt can be viewed in a Unicode text editor or in Word. Notice also that the actual markers should all be as expected, and the content of the ph,pm and |ip markers should be in Unicode IPA.

If you want to do a test to see if it has done an accurate job of converting you can convert the Unicode (UTF8) file back to 8-bit text:

"Program FilesTECkitsfconv" -u8 -utf8 -c IPA93-map.xml -i filename-utf8.txt -o test.sf

If you do this, test.sf should be identical to filename.sfm.

Note: Further information for SFconv can be found in the TECkit documentation (..TECkitdocumentationTECkit version 2.doc.pdf).