The Classical Text Editor an attempt to provide for both printed and digital editions © Stefan...

the Classical Text Editor

an attempt to provide for both printed and digital editions

© Stefan Hagel

www.oeaw.ac.at/kvk/cte

clarification

P. Robinson (2005) about tools for print editions:“Others are based on extensions of the Microsoft Word family of software: e.g. Imprimatur and the Classical Text Editor (CTE)”

The CTE is• not based on MS Word• not devoted exclusively to print editions

But…

the CTE digital impact factor

• over 500 licenses in about 250 projects• 4 are individual licenses for electronic editions

→ Less than 1% digital editors?→ No institutional interest?

• Little feedback about the digital export→ Less programming effort dedicated to digital output

the reverse effect

the goal

“Our goal must be to ensure that any scholar able to make an edition in one medium should be able to make an edition in the other.” (P. Robinson)

The CTE tries to implement the inclusive interpretation of this sentence.

software requirements

• The aspect of output quality– The editor’s concentration must be devoted to scholarly

questions– Changes must be easily made at any stage

• The digitalisation aspect– Editors must not be discouraged– The print edition may be crucial, if only for bureaucratic

reasons→ Creating a digital edition should be an additional option

→ Requirements:– Only one tool– Print and digital output– No code writing– Acceptable results with minimal technical expertise, but– Extensibility for advancing users

the CTE data flow model

CTE

ManualInput Clipboard

Rich Text Format

Text /Unicode Text

Macro pre-processing

<HTML>

<XML><TEI>

XSLT

<XML> <HTML> …PDF

the strategy

Luring the traditional editor into publishing also an electronic version

the sacrifice

“Fundamental to the model of electronic scholarly edition as it has developed over the past decade is the inclusion of full transcripts of all witnesses to the text.” (P. Robinson)

But: scholars who don’t set out for a digital edition from the start don’t care about a machine-readable critical apparatus.

Advantage: the electronic edition will contain a human-readable apparatus.

examples

• Unchanged XML/TEI output from CTE files (without additional tagging)

• Formatted merely by CSS and JavaScript→ easily re-useable templates

1. optimized for MS Internet Explorer• <hi> formatting done programmatically• Notes and margins can be turned off and

on

2. optimized for Opera• „Dynamic“ CSS formatting: notes by

mouse action / margins• Synchronization of several versions• Location search

please find the examples on the CD

[view with standard browser]

works around the Opera 9 CSS

overflow:visible bug

Opera 8 [view with standard browser]

Opera 9 [view with standard browser]

conclusion: possible environments

Technical expert scholar– low-level tools– creative solutions– needs time for

programming

• would perhaps use a program like the CTE for large texts, to modify the output by stylesheet languages or programmatically

Average scholar– all-in-one tool– ready-made

templates– concentrates on

texts

• the typical CTE user

Working group• scholars prepare their contributions

with a high-level tool like the CTE• technical expert collects and

prepares for publication

The Classical Text Editor an attempt to provide for both printed and digital editions © Stefan...

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