Tools and toys
I thought of this, but I could never ever have coded it: Exegenix is touting a new gizmo that accepts Postscript, analyzes text formatting, and uses that analysis to make guesses about document structure.
Now, if you think this is going to solve all your problems, you are fooling yourself. (Does it even have a built-in dictionary to deal with cross-line and cross-page hyphenation? Does it do Word Art, as seen in slick foreign-language textbooks? Show me it handling floats—figures, tables, pull quotes. Show me it handling frontmatter.) Still, just as proof-of-concept this is a cool thing. Wish I could see it work.
The other gizmo I desperately want to see is Rick Jelliffe’s markup editor. My, my, is that ever going to be cool. C’mon, Rick, get it outta beta so I can buy it! Please?
(News once again courtesy of xmlhack.)