From: info@jafsoft.com
Sent: Thursday, October 28, 1999 4:22 PM
To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com
Subject: ANN: AscToHTM 3.2 for OpenVMS now released

Version 3.2 of the AscToHTM and AscToTab text-to-HTML conversion 
utilities are now available for OpenVMS.  This is the first VMS 
release since version 3.0 over a year ago, and which some of you may 
be familiar with from its inclusion on the Compaq freeware CD.

Downloads can be got from 

	http://www.jafsoft.com/asctohtm/a2hvms.html

As with previous releases this software is FREE to VMS users and 
available as shareware (cost $40) for Windows users.  A Linux port
is also planned.

AscToHTM converts plain text files to HTML documents. AscToTab is a 
subset of this functionality that only converts files that contain a 
single text table. 
                     
The software has a new web site and home page at 

	http://www.jafsoft.com/asctohtm/

Documentation is included in all the downloads, but may also be viewed

online at

	http://www.jafsoft.com/doco/a2hdoco.html
                     
Recent changes are described in this documentation at  

	http://www.jafsoft.com/doco/a2hdoco_11.html#Section_11.9

Of interest to VMS web servers may be the /CONSOLE qualifier that
directs the HTML generated to the output stream.  This may make the
software suitable for embedding in web server systems.  If anyone
wishes to pursue this further, feel free to contact me (it was a
VMS user who gave me the idea :-)                   


What AscToHTM/AscToTab do
=========================
                     
AscToHTM converts text files into one or more linked HTML pages. It 
detects indent levels, bullet points, section  headings and 
pre-formatted text, and can add hyper links for section numbers, URLs,

email addresses, USENET  newsgroups and user-specified keywords. 
Pre-formatted text can consist of tables, C-like code fragments or 
ASCII art diagrams.  Full HTML <TABLE> generation is attempted for
detected tables.
                     
It can generate a separate contents list, and add Title, colours,
standard HTML headers and footers, and JavaScript to each page 
generated.  If multiple files are converted at once, a hyperlinked 
directory index can be built. 
                     
A preprocessor allows the production of variant documents (e.g., for 
Internet and intranet publication), and the use of embedded HTML and 
include files in the source text.

New in 3.2 is the ability to add tags to the source text to generate
hyperlinks and to timestamp the conversion (amongst other options).

While AscToHTM can detect and convert tables within a larger document,
AscToTab is dedicated to converting a single text file into a single
table.  In addition to normal text, it can handle tab-delimited data
such as would be exported from Excel.
  
Cheers, Jaf
--
John A Fotheringham
Author of AscToHTM, the text to HTML converter
http://www.jafsoft.com/