http://www.escape.com/~lstein
http://www.escape.com/~lstein
2. Why use it?
Let’s say you edit a school newspaper, and lots of people give you articles in MS Word format (Word will import other file types for you). You would like to publish these articles on the web in a uniform fashion, and not have to go to a lot of trouble. HTMLprep will insert all the necessary HTML tags for the page to be viewed by a browser.
2a. Why not just use that Microsoft Internet Assistant thing (which is much more powerful)?
Primarily because it is the slowest thing on Earth.
3. Why did I write it?
Because I am the editor of a school newspaper, and lots of people like to give me articles in MS Word format...
4. What are its parts?
- A macro, entitled HTMLprep
- A character style called HTML Ignore
These are distributed as a template.
5. How do I install it?
You can either use the Organizer (Tools: Macro...:Organizer) to copy these into your Normal Template, or you can associate the template with whatever document you want to use it with. Lastly, and probably easiest, you can put the template in the "Word Startup Folder (6)" folder in your Preferences folder (in your System Folder).
6. How do I use it?
Once you’ve installed HTMLprep, you can use it simply by:
- Make the file you want it to operate on the frontmost window
- Select Tools: Macro...
- Double-click on HTMLprep
- Fill in the dialog box, press "OK"
- When the save dialog appears, chose whether to save, and if so in what format. Note: if you save in text format, you will lose all style formatting, including "HTML Ignore."
7. What do the options in the dialog box really mean?
- "What should the page’s title be?" Insert text to be displayed in the browser window’s title bar.
- "Put first line in big font? (<h1>)" When selected, HTMLprep sets the document’s first line in <h1> tags. When changed, HTMLprep may insert a default title.
- "Convert all text? (Even in style Ignore HTML)" If checked, HTMLprep will not care whether text is in the "Ignore HTML" style, it will convert it anyway.
- "Automatically convert links to HTML Ignore style?" Attempts to guess (at the beginning), what text is tags, and then converts it to style "Ignore HTML."
- "Guess tags at completion?" (You can not turn this feature off when "Automatically convert links to HTML Ignore style?" is selected) When selected, HTMLprep will try to change all HTML tags to the style "Ignore HTML" at its completion.
8. What exactly does it do?
- Replaces curly quotes with straight ones
- Replaces curly apostrophes with straight ones
- Replaces <, >, and " with HTML equivalents *
- Changes bullets to hyphens (can’t yet figure out how to get unordered lists) and ellipses to three periods
- Can (user’s choice) set the first line in heading one (surrounds it with <h1></h1> tags)
- Surrounds all italic, bold, and underlined text with appropriate tags
- Changes any three or more consecutive hyphens ("-") to a horizontal rule <hr>
- Inserts <html>, <body>, <head>, and <title> tag pairs in the appropriate spots
- Can automatically change all HTML tags to the character style "HTML Ignore" [see q. 4]
* You can choose whether or not this affects text in the "Ignore HTML" style