<div dir="ltr">Dear tex4ht list members,<div><br></div><div>I am about to begin drafting the first chapter of my dissertation in Byzantine and Middle Eastern history. This is the moment when I will commit to the format I will use for writing my entire dissertation. I want it to be XeLaTeX/BibLaTeX, but unless I can come up with a simple workflow for converting the content of my documents to Word format -- the only format that publishers in my field accept -- I will have to give this up and turn to Word/Endnote or Mellel/Bookends for the next three years.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I am using MacTeX 2012 on Mac OS X 10.7.5.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><b>Goal</b></div><div><br></div><div><u>What I need:</u></div><div>1. Footnotes and support for BibTeX. This is why I chose tex4ht; the ability to format tex footnotes as word footnotes is key.</div>
<div>2. Full support for Unicode. This includes French, Italian and German accents as well as diacritics in the Latin script which I use to represent Arabic (e.g. <i>wa-laʿanahu wa-laʿana madhhabahu</i>) and Syriac (e.g. <i>ṭubhaw l-gabhrā dhabh-ʾurḥā dh-ʿawāle lā hallekh</i>) in the body and footnotes of my text as well as in BibTeX entries. This also includes full support for Greek Unicode (e.g. Ἰγνάτιός τε ὁ ἐν τῇ περιοικίδι Μελιτηνῆς καὶ Ζαχάκιος ὁ Ἄρκης καὶ ὁ ἀπὸ Μεσοποταμίας Μωϋσῆς).</div>
<div><br></div><div><u>What I would love to have:</u></div><div>3. Support for Arabic and Syriac scripts (arabxetex, xesyriac).</div><div><br></div><div>Without #3, I think I could still commit to LaTeX and leave out the right-to-left scripts in publications if I must. But without ##1-2, I would be a fool to take the plunge: I recently had to publish a paper which I wrote, idealistically, in LaTeX, and the conversion process was messy, error-prone, and far too time consuming to repeat with a longer work.</div>
<div><br></div><div><br></div><div><b>How far I have gotten so far</b></div><div><br></div><div>But I still have hope. I have prepared a barebones sample of the kind of document I would like to convert:</div>
<div><br></div><div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">%!TEX TS-program = xelatex<br>
%!TEX encoding = UTF-8 Unicode<br>\documentclass[12pt]{memoir}<br>\usepackage{fontspec}<br>\usepackage{xunicode}<br>% Choose roman font (choosing the mapping so that ``--$>$``, '--$>$' etc.).<br>\setromanfont[Mapping=tex-text]{Palatino}<br>
% Greek (normally, use first two lines; to make simple file for export to Word, use 3rd line only)<br>%\newfontfamily{\gr}{New Athena Unicode}<br>%\newcommand{\greek}[1]{{\gr #1}}<br>\newcommand{\greek}[1]{#1}<br>%Arabic<br>
%\usepackage[novoc,fdf2alif]{arabxetex}<br>%\newfontfamily\arabicfont[Script=Arabic,Scale=1.2,WordSpace=2]{USAMA NASKH}<br>%\usepackage{bidi}<br>\newcommand{\textarab}[1][1]{[[INSERT ARABIC QUOTE HERE]]}<br>% Bibliography etc<br>
\usepackage[american]{babel} <br>\usepackage{csquotes}<br>\usepackage[style=historian, babel=hyphen, mincrossrefs = 1, usetranslator=true, printnoterefs=false, backend=biber]{biblatex}<br>\bibliography{/Users/alexandre/Dropbox/bib-dbs/alexhistory.bib}<br>
<br>\begin{document}<br>…One recension reached to the beginning of al-Qāhir's caliphate (320--2/932--4), the very year when he ``was made patriarch of Alexandria (\emph{ṣuyyira… baṭriyarkan ʿalā l-Iskandarīya})." Others contain ``additions (\emph{ziyādāt})" not in the original, which Yaḥyā knows because ``I saw the copy of the original itself, as well as other, different copies of the book, and the end of its contents is up to the caliphate of al-Rāḍī (322--9/934--40)."\footnote{(citation) \textarab[utf]{ورايت نسخة الاصل نفسها ونسخ اخر للكتاب غيرها ونهاية ما فيها الى خلافة الراضي}.}<br>
… But don't tell me…\footnote{\greek{ἀλλὰ μὴ εἶπέ μοι...}}<br>\printbibliography<br>\end{document}</blockquote><div><br></div><div>As you can see, at the moment I am not even trying to keep the Arabic script. (If you have any ideas about how I might do that, I'd love to hear them too!) When I execute the command</div>
<div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">htxelatex word.converter.barebones.tex "xhtml,charset=utf-8" -utf8</blockquote>
<div><br></div><div>I get errors of the form "! LaTeX Error: Command `\acute' already defined in `'." And more importantly, the outputted HTML file is essentially blank:</div></div><div><br></div><div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)"><?xml</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span>version<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">=</span><span style="color:rgb(168,0,192)">"1.0"</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span>encoding<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">=</span><span style="color:rgb(168,0,192)">"utf-8"</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> ?</span><span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)">></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> <br>
</span><span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)"><!DOCTYPE</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> html </span><span style="color:rgb(9,142,155)">PUBLIC</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span>"-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> <br>
</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span>"<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd</a>"<span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)">></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> <br>
</span><!--<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd--">http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd--</a>><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> <br></span><span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)"><html</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> xmlns=</span>"<a href="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml</a>"<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> <br>
</span><span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)">></span> <br><head><title></title><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> <br></span><span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)"><meta</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(9,142,155)">http-equiv</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">=</span>"Content-Type"<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(9,142,155)">content</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">=</span>"text/html; charset=utf-8"<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)">/></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> <br>
</span><span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)"><meta</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(9,142,155)">name</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">=</span>"generator"<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(9,142,155)">content</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">=</span>"TeX4ht (<a href="http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~gurari/TeX4ht/">http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~gurari/TeX4ht/</a>)"<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)">/></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> <br>
</span><span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)"><meta</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(9,142,155)">name</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">=</span>"originator"<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(9,142,155)">content</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">=</span>"TeX4ht (<a href="http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~gurari/TeX4ht/">http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~gurari/TeX4ht/</a>)"<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)">/></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> <br>
</span><!-- xhtml,charset=utf-8,html --><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> <br></span><span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)"><meta</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(9,142,155)">name</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">=</span>"src"<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(9,142,155)">content</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">=</span>"word.converter.barebones.tex"<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)">/></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> <br>
</span><span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)"><meta</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(9,142,155)">name</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">=</span>"date"<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(9,142,155)">content</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">=</span>"2013-02-16 14:38:00"<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)">/></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> <br>
</span><span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)"><link</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(9,142,155)">rel</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">=</span>"stylesheet"<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(9,142,155)">type</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">=</span>"text/css"<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(9,142,155)">href</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">=</span>"word.converter.barebones.css"<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)">/></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> <br>
</span></head><body<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> <br></span>><br><!--l. 31--><span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)"><p</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(9,142,155)">class</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">=</span><span style="color:rgb(168,0,192)">"noindent"</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)">><br>
</span> <br><span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)"><span</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(9,142,155)">class</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">=</span>"footnote-mark"<span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)">><a</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> <br>
</span><span style="color:rgb(9,142,155)">href</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">=</span>"word.converter.barebones2.html#fn1x0"<span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)">><sup</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(9,142,155)">class</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">=</span>"textsuperscript"<span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)">></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)"></sup></a></span><a</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> <br>
</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(9,142,155)">id</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">=</span>"x1-2f1"<span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)">></a><br></span><span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)"></p></span><span style="color:rgb(0,134,51)"><!--l. 33--></span><span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)"><p</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(9,142,155)">class</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">=</span>"indent"<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)">></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)"><span</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(9,142,155)">class</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">=</span>"footnote-mark"<span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)">><a</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> <br>
</span><span style="color:rgb(9,142,155)">href</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">=</span>"word.converter.barebones3.html#fn2x0"<span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)">><sup</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(9,142,155)">class</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">=</span>"textsuperscript"<span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)">></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)"></sup></a></span><a</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> <br>
</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(9,142,155)">id</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">=</span>"x1-3f2"<span style="color:rgb(200,0,0)">></a><br></span></p><br> <br>
</body></html><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"> </span></blockquote>
</div><div><br></div><div style>(The separate HTML files representing footnotes are likewise blank.)</div><div style><br></div><div style>I can get this whole process to work and output HTML or ODT, as long as I don't insist on using fontspec, which seems to be the key to being able to include diacritical marks, accents, and Greek. But of course, that's precisely what I need!</div>
<div style><br></div><div style><br></div><div style><b>Appeal to the tex4ht list</b></div><div style><br></div><div style>I feel like I'm close, but since I am only really an amateur and don't have much of a sense of how the underbelly of TeX, tex4ht etc. work, I hope that my appeal will reach the ears and screens of those who do!</div>
<div style><br></div><div style>I would be most grateful for any help you may be able to offer!</div><div style><br></div><div style>Alex</div><div style><br></div><div style>--</div><div style>Alexandre M. Roberts</div><div style>
Department of History</div><div style>UC Berkeley</div></div>