Section IV: Automatic vs. Hand Generation

The much-publicized disagreements between the “hand-crafters” and the “automatic hypertexters” has widened recently because systems that can actually perform automatic conversion of on-line documents into hypertext are finally on the market. These conflicts are, infact, a bit overblown. Most of those who do not automatically generate hypertexts do use some tools to aid in the conversion of existing on-line and papertext documents. Most of those who sell automatic text-to-hypertext conversion systems acknowledge that the hyperdocuments that emerge will have to be edited, tested, and changed by skilled hypertext authors.

In this section, two men who have worked at automatic text-to-hypertext conversion for a long time explain the capabilities and limitations of their products. Tom Rearick is President of Big Science, whose automatic conversion product, SmarText, is a general-purpose conversion tool that creates medium-sized hypertexts. Rob Riner works for Texas Instruments, whose HyperTRANS Facility is a set of utilities designed to generate huge hypertexts.