german-law-to-html

XSLT stylesheets for converting German legal documents from XML to HTML or Markdown format, optimized for machine translation.

Purpose

Prachtsaal is a non-profit art cooperative from Berlin. Since most of our international members speak English rather than German, we need to translate relevant German laws and documents—particularly the Cooperative Societies Act (GenG).

While the official website provides legal texts in multiple formats, none are well-suited for machine translation while preserving document structure and formatting.

What This Does

These XSLT stylesheets transform German law XML files (following the gesetze-im-internet.de schema) into clean, translation-ready formats:

• german-law-to-html.xslt → Clean HTML with semantic structure and minimal CSS
• german-law-to-markdown.xslt → Plain text Markdown with proper heading hierarchy

Choose HTML when: You need styled output for web display or rich text processing
Choose Markdown when: You need plain text for translation tools or documentation systems

Prerequisites

Install xsltproc (part of libxslt):

# macOS
brew install libxslt

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt-get install xsltproc

# RHEL/CentOS/Fedora
sudo yum install libxslt

Quick Start

1. Get a German law XML file (see Complete Example below)
2. Convert to your preferred format:

# HTML conversion
xsltproc german-law-to-html.xslt your-law.xml > output.html

# Markdown conversion  
xsltproc german-law-to-markdown.xslt your-law.xml > output.md

Complete Example

Download and convert the German Cooperative Law:

cd example
./download-geng.sh

The script will output something like:

Done! XML file extracted as BJNR000550889.xml

To convert to HTML:
  xsltproc ../german-law-to-html.xslt BJNR000550889.xml > geng.html

To convert to Markdown:
  xsltproc ../german-law-to-markdown.xslt BJNR000550889.xml > geng.md

Just copy and run the suggested commands:

# Generate both formats
xsltproc ../german-law-to-html.xslt BJNR000550889.xml > geng.html
xsltproc ../german-law-to-markdown.xslt BJNR000550889.xml > geng.md

What You Get

HTML Output:

• Semantic HTML5 structure with <section>, <header>, etc.
• Proper heading hierarchy (h1, h2, h3)
• Ordered lists with appropriate CSS classes
• Minimal inline CSS for list styling

Markdown Output:

• Standard Markdown syntax
• Proper heading hierarchy (#, ##, ###)
• Numbered lists for legal provisions
• Code blocks for preformatted content

Troubleshooting

"failed to load external entity" warnings: These DTD warnings are harmless—the conversion will still work correctly.

Empty output files: Check that your XML file is valid and follows the gesetze-im-internet.de schema.

"xsltproc: command not found": Install libxslt (see Prerequisites).

License

GPL v3 - See LICENSE for details.