The mh2html TeX to HTML Converter

kg, 23.02.99

mh2html is a special-purpose converter to convert MuPAD help pages written with the Mhelp.sty TeX style into HTML. It is not intended to be a general-purpose TeX to HTML converter.

Only simple TeX files may be converted. Especially the converter can not handle user-defined macros. So do not use \def or \chardef or the like.

The converter is currently intended to be an in-house tool for the MuPAD Group only. Please do not re-distribute it.

Calling Syntax

Call the converter as follows: The options are:
 
-h
Displays short help.
-d def-file
The conversion definition file to use.
-o out-file
Base name of the HTML output files created. Default is the base-name of tex-file.
-l break-level
Section level where to break the current page and create a new HTML page. Default is 6.
-D definition
Definitions allowing to control conversion. Currently the definition german is used to create german section headings and the like and the definition ie4 is used to create HTML pages for IE4.x.
The extension .tex may be omitted for the tex-file.

HTML Files created

Usually several HTML files are created given one TeX file. If a section heading has a level lower or equal to the break-level given by the -l option the current HTML page is closed and a new page is started. The pages have the names out-file.html, out-file1.html, out-file2.html,... The first page out-file.html contains a table of contents.

The following levels are assigned to the TeX section macros:
 

Level Macro
1 chapter, Mpacktitle
2 section, appendix, thebibliography, Mhelppage
3 subsection, subsection* 
4 subsubsection, subsubsection*
5 subsubsubsection, subsubsubsection*
6 paragraph, paragraph*

Important: mh2html creates only alias references. These must be substituted by the ``real'' references after the HTML files have been created. A label alias file out-file.hla is created by mh2html which contains the aliases and correct labels. The references must then be fixed with the perl-script fixrefs.pl.
 

Fixing the References in the HTML Files

In the directory where the HTML files and the label alias files *.hla have been created run the perl-script fixrefs.pl without arguments.  The script catenates all label alias files and then substitutes all alias references in the HTML files in the directory.  This may take a while...

The Conversion Definition File

Some of the conversion is programmed into the converter, some rules for conversion are defined by a conversion definition file mh2html.def which is read by the converter at run-time. The definition file is searched as follows:
  1. If a definition file is given at the command line using the -d option this is used.
  2. If the environment variable MH2HTML_PATH is defined then the file $MH2HTML_PATH/mh2html.def is used.
  3. Otherwise the file mh2html.def in the current directory is ued.
The syntax of the definition file is to be described.

Notes

Sometimes a second run of the converter is necessary to fix some references for library packages. Warnings are printed as a hint. The files out-file.htc, out-file.hco, out-file.hhd are created which contains the references.

The converter includes files defined with the TeX macros \include or \Minclude into the resulting HTML file.

If the definement ie4 is given at the command line or in the conversion definition file the HTML files generated are suitable for Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.x, but not for Netscape Navigator 4.x. A special feature of the files generated this way is the ability to fold and unfold the different sections of a help page. (This is implemented by using CSS and JavaScript in a way which is currently not supported by the Netscape browsers.)

If the definement ie4 is not given, both Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.x, 4.x and Netscape Navigator 4.x should be able to render the HTML files generated.