VMs: Re: Numbered transcription

["Rafal T. Prinke" <rafalp@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Greg Stachowski wrote:

> But there are
> alternatives to Word which will do the same thing. TeX is one, PDF is
> another, XML is a third.

The important difference to note, however, is that you can generate
PDF from TeX, PDF and TeX from XML, but you cannot generate
XML from either of the others. XML can be processed fairly easily
with XSLT and a number of other free tools which is not so true
about TeX and not true at all about PDF.

Thus IMHO the container for the VMS transcriptions (past, present
and future) should be XML. Using the TEI tags and making it
TEI-compatible will ensure mutual understanding with
the larger "textological" community.

To give an example of encoding the versions/transcriptions in TEI:

<app>
  <rdg
resp="H">fachys.ykal.ar.ataiin.shol.shory.cth!res.y.kor.sholdy!-</rdg>
  <rdg
resp="C">fachys.ykal.ar.ataiin.shol.shory.cthorys.y.kor.sholdy!-</rdg>
  <rdg
resp="F">fya!ys.ykal.ar.ytaiin.shol.shory.*k*!res.y!kor.sholdy!-</rdg>
  <rdg
resp="N">fachys.ykal.ar.ataiin.shol.shory.cth!res.y,kor.sholdy!-</rdg>
  <rdg
resp="U">fya!ys.ykal.ar.ytaiin.shol.shory.***!r*s.y.kor.sholdo*-</rdg>
</app>

where "app" stands for "[critical] apparatus", "rdg" for "reading",
"resp" for "responsibility". We could argue that it could be done
in a number of different ways, using other tag-names, etc. But will
it make any difference?

Best regards,

Rafal