Exegenix Technology FAQ

Q: What is Exegenix technology?

A: Exegenix technology can convert into XML any file that can be printed to PostScript® or PDF. It uses visual cues to uncover a document's structure, much the same way that humans do. It looks at a document as a whole, taking into consideration each graphical object's format, position, and context.

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Q: How does Exegenix technology differ from existing conversion solutions?

A: Unlike hand-tagging, it is accurate, fast, and minimizes human resource requirements, enabling valuable expertise to be employed more effectively elsewhere.

Unlike "scripted" conversion, there is no dependency on consistently-applied formatting styles, and no programming expertise required to develop/maintain configuration scripts.

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Q: Is Exegenix technology similar to “OCR” (Optical Character Recognition) technology?

A: No. Exegenix technology does not read scanned images of paper documents; it examines PostScript® and PDF data created from a print-to-file operation and uses the characters in the PostScript file directly, with the layout of the page as a guide to the structure of the document. However, if your legacy documents are paper-based and require scanning and pre-processing into PDF format prior to XML conversion, Exegenix can supply this service via one of our partners.

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Q: What unstructured formats can Exegenix technology convert to XML?

A: Exegenix technology can convert any printable content; that is, any content that can be printed to a PostScript® or PDF file. This means that all of the following conversion requirements can be met:

• PDF to XML
• PostScript to XML
• Microsoft Word to XML
• RTF to XML
• WordPerfect to XML
• Quark XPress to XML
• Paper to XML
• Anything-you-can-print-to-PostScript to XML

See the document "Printing to PDF for Exegenix Conversion Solutions" for further information. For formats other than PDF and PostScript, Exegenix can supply technology and services to automate the "print-to-PostScript" process.

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Q: How does Exegenix technology know what DTD to use?

A: Exegenix technology generates XML output compliant with the Exegenix Export XML DTD. This DTD models generic, hierarchical output and is based on DocBook (including the OASIS/CALS table model). Formatting properties of the original document are represented using attributes that conform to XSL-FO (XSL-Formatting Objects) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). From this Canonical form, XSLT and/or other transformation scripts can be applied to convert to other formats, such as another XML format, SGML, HTML, RTF, ASCII Text, OeB, DAISY, DocBook 4.4 etc.

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Q: What about presentation of the XML output? Does it automatically use CSS/XSL also?

A: All formatting information in the source document is retained in the XML output as XSL-FO and CSS compatible information, which can be isolated from the output file by an XSL-Transformation script. If you require automated post-processing in the form of custom XSLT scripts and/or population of your content management system, Exegenix can supply this service.

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Q: Can Exegenix technology output SGML or other formats?

A: Exegenix technology always creates XML. This XML is valid to the Exegenix Export DTD.

The Exegenix Export DTD was designed such that Exegenix Export XML will be easily transformable to whatever format a customer requires. Exegenix has developed XSL-Tranformation scripts that that will transform standard Exegenix Export XML to SGML syntax, and other transformations to convert it to XHTML, DocBook,Text, OeB, DocBook 4.4, DAISY, Digital Talking Book (DTBook) etc.

See “The Exegenix Export DTD” for more information.

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Q: Can Exegenix technology convert all constructs within a document?

A: Exegenix technology is modular and extensible. We have undertaken a broad-based document analysis project to build supporting modules for the most commonly-found constructs. As distinct new document formatting constructs are encountered in new document sets, new modules can be added to support that type of construct. See "Document Complexity in XML Conversion" for additional information on document types and their ease of conversion.

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Q: Is there a limit on the size of document Exegenix technology can convert?

A: While there are no technical limits to the size of single document that can be processed, large single documents greater than 1000 pages will require significant amounts of processor power and memory. Though it is not a requirement of the technology, Exegenix therefore recommends splitting large documents into more manageable sections of around 200 pages.

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Q: What platforms can Exegenix technology run on?

A: Exegenix technology currently runs on Win32 and Linux®.

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Q: How is Exegenix technology deployed?

A: The modular structure of Exegenix technology means that we can offer a flexible range of deployment options to address each individual organization's XML conversion needs. Depending on your requirements for process control, data security, processing power and support, our technology can be employed in a variety of ways: choose from onsite installation of the heavy-duty Exegenix Conversion System, a deployment of the nimbler Exegenix Conversion Satellite, or the fully turnkey Exegenix Conversion Service - all leveraging our technology to provide accurate, fast, cost-effective XML output.

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More Info

• Read about the concept that led to the development of our revolutionary conversion technology.
• Read a more detailed description of our conversion technology.
• Review Frequently Asked Questions about Exegenix technology.
• Read about the Exegenix Conversion Solutions.
• Determine your conversion requirements with our Conversion Needs Assessment survey.