Signum!2 File-Converter

[Xiphoseer]

Hey there!

for the last 6 months, I worked on a converter from the Signum!2 (Application Systems Heidelberg) SDO file format to various other formats like PDF and HTML. I know that people have reverse engineered the format in the past, but as far as I'm aware, this is the first tool to do that from start to finish and without the need to boot up an ST or compatible.

The tools uses the original editor font (E24) and printer fonts (P24, P09, L30) for the conversion to a graphical format like PDF or PNG and it can consume use Unicode mapping tables (type "A") to embed (PDF) or output (HTML) the correct characters. Almost all features (including images) are implemented, only bold and italic font modes are ignored at the moment.

The tools is available at https://xiphoseer.github.io/sdo-tool. Please let me know if you have any issues or suggestions. I'd also be interested to know if some of you still have ASH-Fontdisks or Accessories like Signum-Manager or Sigrevers. Attached you find two example documents that my tool produces.

[mjvans]

That looks impressive. I like the menu on your site.

[stormy]

Very cool indeed! Well done! I had never heard of Signum before seeing this, looks like a very advanced word processor/dtp!

[calimero]

Thank you!

[Thsi]

Hello
sorry, but I've an issue with some missing ChSets:
"signum::chsets::cache > Could not find CHSET folder: Das System kann den angegebenen Pfad nicht finden. (os error 3)
WARN signum::chsets::cache > Editor font for `TIME_11B` not found!
WARN signum::chsets::cache > Could not find CHSET folder: Das System kann den angegebenen Pfad nicht finden. (os error 3)
WARN signum::chsets::cache > Editor font for `GRIECH` not found!
WARN signum::chsets::cache > Could not find CHSET folder: Das System kann den angegebenen Pfad nicht finden. (os error 3)
WARN signum::chsets::cache > Editor font for `GRAPH1` not found!
WARN signum::chsets::cache > Could not find CHSET folder: Das System kann den angegebenen Pfad nicht finden. (os error 3)
WARN signum::chsets::cache > Editor font for `TIME_5_D` not found!
WARN signum::chsets::cache > Could not find CHSET folder: Das System kann den angegebenen Pfad nicht finden. (os error 3)
WARN signum::chsets::cache > Editor font for `TIM_U_9D` not found!
WARN sdo_tool::cli::sdoc > No print-driver has all fonts available."

What can I do ?
Thank you

[Xiphoseer]

Hello
sorry, but I've an issue with some missing ChSets:

[...]

What can I do ?
Thank you

Firstly: Are the charsets missing completely or does the tool fail to find them? In the latter case, you can add a folder called CHSETS next to the SDO file and put all E24, P24, P09 and L30 files you have in there. I think the error message is missing an S there at the end of the name of the folder.

I don't think I have a copy of TIME_11B, TIME_5_D and TIM_U_9D, but the names sound like bold (and possibly underlined) variants of the TIMES font (https://xiphoseer.de/sdo-tool/fdiscs/professional.html) in different sizes. GRIECH and GRAPH1 are standard charsets that you can still get with the Signum!2 copy from ASH (https://www.ashshop.biz/diverses/atari/ ... 2-download).

Fortunately, Signum doesn't need the font files for the positions of the characters. So if you have any charset available to you that matches TIMES in the characters it provides, you can just copy that for once for every missing charset and it should at least produce something readable. https://xiphoseer.de/sdo-tool/fdiscs/standard#GROTLT should work fine for most or maybe even all letters.

[Gunstick]

Hi

superbe tool!!!!

And many thanks for creating a linux version, so I could get started right away without needing to install a full rust environment.

Some issues I had with solutions for anyone who comes across this thread:

1) it is not executable out from the zip (obviously)
Solution:

Code: Select all

chmod +x sdo-tool

2) it does not find fonts
this is beacuse it searches for the chsets folder from the directory where the SDO file resides and not from the current directory.
Solution: give the location of the chsets folder by absolute path

Code: Select all

sdo-tool texte/infile.sdo --format pdf --chsets-path $PWD/chsets

3) it still does not find fonts!
the tool searches fonts witten in captial letters. If your ST files are all lowercase, then you need to make a bunch of links:

Code: Select all

cd chsets
for i in *
do
 ln -s $i $(echo $i|tr [:lower:] [:upper:])
done

I now got nice converted documents.

Unsolved issue: some documents got their header/footer garbled. But others worked fine. The main texts still rendered correctly.

I am very pleased.
Thanks a lot.