Introduction
I am intrigued by the idea of developing a workflow that leads from a variety of input formats to high-quality typesetting and page layout. This project is inspired by my long-standing interest in print technology (which goes back to the days of hot-metal typesetting) and by the wide range of options afforded by present-day open-source software.
The starting-points have to encompass familiar file formats: at the very least, Microsoft Word .doc/.docx and LaTeX .tex. Then, the route into typesetting probably has to run: (1) via LaTeX for highly technical content, and optionally for less technical content (through the conversion of Word files, for example); or (2) possibly via the Lout typesetting system, primarily for less technical content.
The output has to be well-formed XML first, followed by reliable and ideally automatic conversion to W3C-validated XHTML/MathML, high-quality PDF and/or Epub format. The conversion to XML is a vital first step to ensure flexibility. This also has to be a round-trip workflow: the final high-quality PDF, after conversion to XML, must be identical to a PDF produced directly from either LaTeX or Lout, prior to XML conversion.
Progress so far has been constrained by both the limited amount of available time and my somewhat inadequate knowledge base. I am amassing a depository of software resources, primarily on the Ubuntu Linux platform. The toolkit is of no use without a suitable level of skill, so familiarity comes next. In the meantime, I have achieved a measure of success in converting files from LaTeX to XML, and then to XHTML, with largely dependable maths rendering in the Firefox browser on the Ubuntu Linux platform:
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