When structured documents such as ASTM terminology standards are to be converted into databases for computer-assisted terminology, there are important database and software design questions which arise. The three most important issues involve the encoding of unstructured text databases, the conversion of the structured text into database format by parser/converters, and the design and normalization of relational record structure to preserve database integrity. This paper proposes a process for the conversion of terminology documents using a relational database model optimized for terminology documents.