Magnum One

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Magnum One / Magnum One (Mid-American Digital) (Disc Manufacturing).iso / d3 / txtout13.arc / TEXTOUT5.DOC < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1990-01-16 | 23KB | 494 lines

TextOut/5 1.3 Payment Form -------------------------- NEW! Payment for TextOut/5 now entitles you to a free CompuServe IntroPak, including a $15 credit toward on-line time! Name ____________________________________________________________ Company _________________________________________________________ Address _________________________________________________________ City ________________________________ State ______ Zip __________ Country _________________________ NUMBER OF COPIES ____ DISKETTE SIZE __________ TOTAL PAYMENT $_____ ($20/copy suggested) Payment of $20 or more per copy entitles the purchaser to a printed manual (sized to fit the WP binder), the current release of TextOut/5 without the on-screen payment reminder, and a free CompuServe IntroPak. SALES TAX _______ (Michigan residents only, 4%) OVERSEAS SHIPPING _______ ($5 per order) PAYMENT METHOD: ___ Check enclosed (US Funds): ___ Bill company (enclose purchase order, add $5 processing fee) ___ Charge VISA / MasterCard Card # __________________________________ Expires ___________ Signature ____________________________________________________ Call (517) 332-4353 to pay by MasterCard or VISA, or send your payment or purchase order to: CrossCourt Systems 1521 Greenview Ave. East Lansing, MI 48823 Prices are in U.S. dollars and include shipping within North America. Foreign orders: payment must be by credit card, international money order in U.S. dollars, or by check in U.S. dollars drawn on a U.S. bank. Payment must also include $5 shipping for airmail delivery. TextOut/5 WordPerfect 5 to ASCII Conversion Program Version 1.3 Another Shareware Product from: CrossCourt Systems (Member - Association of Shareware Professionals) FEATURES TextOut/5 converts WordPerfect 5.0 and 5.1 document files on IBM- compatible computers to ASCII. It improves upon WordPerfect's Text Out command, in both the "DOS Text" and "generic" formats. 1. TextOut/5 translates text, captions, and equations from graphics boxes, as well as footnotes and endnotes; WordPerfect does not. 2. TextOut/5 formats tables much better than WordPerfect does. 3. TextOut/5 translates over 400 of WordPerfect's special characters to ASCII; WordPerfect translates only 150. 4. TextOut/5 allows you to specify the line length you want in the ASCII file, without any reformatting on your part. 5. TextOut/5 can use special characters to mark many font attributes, such as underline, allowing you to transfer the file to another word processor and restore the attributes. 6. TextOut/5 runs from the DOS command line, and accepts wildcard filespecs. 7. TextOut/5 can recover text from damaged files that WordPerfect will not load. TextOut/5's default ASCII format is very much like that of the WordPerfect "DOS Text Save" command. It emulates indents, tabs and centering by the use of spaces, and ends each line with a hard carriage return. The format is suitable for electronic mail and many other purposes. See the "OPTIONS" section for information on the other formats TextOut/5 can produce. TextOut/5 omits most page-formatting characteristics. This means that, for example, the left margin is not expanded to spaces; the top and bottom margins are not expanded to blank lines; page breaks, headers, footers, and page numbering are omitted; and line-spacing and top-to-bottom-centering commands are ignored. Over 400 of WordPerfect's special characters are translated to equivalent or similar ASCII characters. Other WordPerfect special characters are translated to ASCII 254. WordPerfect's overstrike feature is translated with a backspace character (ASCII 8) inserted between the characters. Captions and text from graphics boxes are translated. Equations are written in the command form used in the equation editor. Tables have correct horizontal spacing, but, unfortunately, any cell containing 3 more than one line of text will cause the next cell to the right to start one or more lines below where it should. Footnotes and endnotes are placed at the end of the ASCII file. Within the notes, a period and a single space are added after the note number for readability. If a document contains both footnotes and endnotes, the footnotes appear first, followed by the endnotes. The footnote reference numbers in the text are enclosed in square brackets, e.g. [1], while endnote reference numbers are enclosed in braces, e.g. {3}. For "Fast-Saved" documents, TextOut/5 will warn you that the formatting may not be correct. Unless you have recently made a change in margins, tabs or fonts without having gone to the end of the document, the ASCII format will probably be fine. You can avoid potential problems by changing your Setup options to disable Fast Saves. USE To run TextOut/5, type TO5 followed by two filenames. The first one is the name of the input (WordPerfect) file, the second is the output (ASCII) file. For example: TO5 TEST.DOC TEST.ASC The file names can include wildcards, employed in the same way as with the DOS COPY command. For example, TO5 A:P*.* converts all files starting with P in the current directory on drive A: to ASCII files of the same name on the current drive and directory, while TO5 \DOCS \TEXT\*.TXT would convert all files from the \DOCS directory to the \TEXT directory while changing their extensions to TXT. If a file already exists under the output name, it will be replaced without warning. If the input and output names are the same, TextOut/5 will not proceed with the conversion. If the source file is not a WordPerfect 5 document, TextOut/5 will report this, and will not perform the conversion. OPTIONS TextOut/5 has many options which can be invoked by "switches" on the command line. The switches start with a slash or a hyphen, followed by a letter identifying the option, and, for some of the switches, a numeric value. The identifying letter can be upper or lower case and the switches can appear anywhere on the command line -- before, after, or in between the filenames. There must not be any spaces between the slash, the letter and the number. A typical command might look like: TO5 /T /R /B60 /C62 SAMPL SAMPL.ASC 4 "Generic Format" Options These two options are usually used together to produce a format like WordPerfect's "generic word processing" option. This format has tabs and carriage returns only where the operator originally typed them, with no spaces or "soft returns" added. This is usually the best format to use if you want to transfer the resulting ASCII file to another word processor. 1. /R keep only hard <R>eturns This will keep only WordPerfect's hard returns in the ASCII file, in effect turning each paragraph into a single long line of text. It also changes the formatting of footnotes and endnotes, placing them in-line where they occur rather than at the end of the file. This makes it easier to change them back into footnotes in another word processor, in many cases by using a macro. [[The note numbers are omitted entirely, and the content of a footnote is enclosed in double square brackets, as shown by this sentence.]] {[Endnotes are enclosed as shown by this sentence.]} 2. /T keep <T>ab characters This will keep tab characters in the ASCII file, rather than replacing them with spaces. It differs slightly from WordPerfect's generic format, in that it does not use spaces to position text that is centered between the margins or flush to the right margin. Font Attribute Options These four pairs of switches, allow the start and end of certain font attributes to be marked in the ASCII file using special characters. They are usually used along with the generic-format options in order to move the ASCII file to another word processor and restore the original format. The naming of these switches is intended to be mnemonic, but they require some explanation. The first switch of each pair, used for the "start attribute" code, should remind you of the function, while the switch for the "end attribute" code simply follows the first alphabetically. Thus /B for bold is paired with /C, and /U for underline is paired with /V. Subscripting and superscripting are less obvious, with /I and /J intended to remind you of things often used as subscripts, while /X and /Y might be used as superscripts (powers). 1. /B# and /C# <B>oldface There are several ways to use these and the other paired options. 5 To mark boldface text using the defaults of { (ASCII 123) at the beginning and } (ASCII 125) at the end, just specify /B by itself. To mark boldface text using other characters, perhaps because the default characters may occur in your document, specify either or both of the /B and /C switches with a decimal ASCII value (as indicated by the # symbol in the switch template above). In the case of the /B switch, the ASCII character corresponding to the numeric value will be used to mark the start of boldface; the value given for the /C switch will be used to mark the end. The value must be decimal and cannot be zero. Only a single ASCII value can be used for each switch; it is not possible to mark with a multi-character code, such as [B]. So, for example, /B17 would cause a Ctrl-Q to be used at the start of bold text, while /C35 would put # symbols at the end of bold text. In some ways the use of ASCII values is inconvenient, but DOS puts restrictions on the use of many characters on the command line, so combinations like /B< /C> would not work. The use of numbers gives maximum flexibility. 2. /I# and /J# subscripts The description of /B and /C above explains how the paired options work. If you use /I without a number, the beginning of a subscript will be marked with ~ (ASCII 126) and the ending with | (ASCII 124). 3. /U# and /V# <U>nderlining The description of /B and /C above explains how the paired options work. If you use /U without a number, the beginning of underlining will be marked with < (ASCII 60) and the ending with > (ASCII 62). 4. /X# and /Y# superscripts The description of /B and /C above explains how the paired options work. If you use /X without a number, the beginning of a superscript will be marked with ^ (ASCII 94) and the ending with \ (ASCII 92). Layout Options 1. /L# line <L>ength Documents that are formatted with small fonts or for wide pages may have a large number of characters per line when translated to ASCII. Similarly, documents that are formatted in columns may have very short lines. Such long or short lines may be 6 undesirable in the ASCII file, so TextOut/5 lets you change the line length. The /L# option tells TextOut/5 to ignore WordPerfect's line breaks (soft returns) and use a line length that you specify. /L70, for example, would cause lines in the ASCII file to break just before column 70. Items that are tabbed beyond this column can cause formatting errors. To avoid this, TextOut/5 ignores the WordPerfect display pitch when the /L# option is used, and instead sets its own pitch. If tabbed items still extend beyond the desired length, you can try reducing the pitch further yourself, with the /P# option. With some documents, of course, it is impossible to shorten the line length without ruining the formatting. The /L option overrides the /R option. 2. /P# tab-fill <P>itch Word Perfect 5 measures all tabs, indents, centering, etc. in absolute units, i.e. inches. It also allows you to intermix different font sizes at will. This can cause some inconsistencies in spacing when converting to ASCII files, where inches and font sizes are meaningless. For each document, WordPerfect calculates what it calls display pitch, which is the average width of a character in the smallest font in the document. This is not really a pitch, since it denotes inches per character, and might typically have a value of .083". Calculating the inverse of this gives a true pitch value, measured in characters per inch. For example, 1/.083 gives a value of 12 pitch. TextOut/5 uses WordPerfect's display pitch to determine how many spaces to use when expanding tabs and other alignment codes. This normally works quite well, but sometimes WordPerfect assigns an inappropriate display pitch to a document. This would affect, among others, items that are tabbed, possibly putting them too close together or too far apart. To correct this type of error, which should rarely occur, you can specify a different pitch for the tab filling by using, for example, /P12 to indicate 12 pitch. Other Options 1. /D <D>elimited merge file The /D option converts a secondary merge file to ASCII delimited format, consisting of quoted fields separated by commas, with carriage returns only at the ends of records. Use this for 7 secondary merge files only; this option will convert a standard document into a single line of text. 2. /H <H>eaderless WP file This option can recover the text from a damaged file that may not be usable with WordPerfect. There are many different kinds of damage that may occur to a file, however, and the quality of the results from TextOut/5 may vary widely. BEFORE YOU USE THIS OPTION YOU MUST REMOVE THE HEADER FROM THE FILE. If you don't, the program will still work, but probably won't recover any text . To do this, you must have a byte-level editor, such as WordPerfect's Program Editor or the Norton Utilities, and you must know how to use it on binary files. Using the editor, find the initial text of the document and delete everything that precedes it. The WordPerfect header may contain recognizable text that precedes the beginning of the document, but you should delete this anyway; look specifically for the beginning of the body of the document. Don't delete anything after the initial text of the document, even though much of it may look like junk. Save the result under a new name. Run TextOut/5 using this new headerless file as input and specifying the /H option. Use the generic-format options as well as the attribute-marking options, because they will produce a file that can be most easily restored to its original format. Since the new file is ASCII, use the Retrieve command on the Text In/Out - DOS Text menu rather than the standard document Retrieve. If the first attempt is unsatisfactory, try editing the headerless file again, this time looking for large blocks of a single character. Try deleting these and running TextOut/5 again. REGISTRATION AND DISTRIBUTION TextOut/5 is Copyright 1988-90, CrossCourt Systems. If you try TextOut/5 and find it to be a useful and valuable product, please complete your purchase of it by sending payment to CrossCourt Systems at the address below. For $20 you will receive a printed manual, sized to fit the WordPerfect binder, and the current version of the program, without the on-screen payment reminder. You will also receive a free IntroPak for the CompuServe Information Service, the premiere interactive electronic communication service. CompuServe provides news, financial information, entertainment services, personal computing services, special interest forums, and more. The IntroPak includes $15 of free on-line time. VISA and MasterCard are accepted. Volume discounts, site licenses, and Microsoft C source code for TextOut/5 are also available. 8 In the spirit of shareware, we believe that the value of a program is best determined by you, based on the number of copies you are using, the frequency of use, and the amount of time it saves you. Our business policy is to accept payments both above and below the stated $20 price. TextOut/5 may be distributed to others, as long as 1) the program is not altered in any way, 2) this documentation file is always included, and 3) no charge is made for such distribution beyond a modest disk preparation fee. For bulletin board distribution, please use the file name TEXTOUT5.ZIP or TXTOUT.ZIP TextOut/5 has been tested and performs its functions essentially as described above, without causing any damage to the computer in use or any of its files. However, all users are responsible for backing up their own files, and CrossCourt Systems assumes no responsibility for any damage or losses incurred as a result of its use. CrossCourt Systems supports TextOut/5, by providing technical assistance, bug fixes, and enhancements. CrossCourt Systems can be reached on CompuServe at 72446,2704, or at the address and phone below. If you encounter problems with any conversion, or have suggestions for improvements, please let us know about them. CrossCourt Systems 1521 Greenview Ave. East Lansing, MI 48823 (517) 332-4353 CrossCourt Systems is a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP), a group dedicated to high standards in the design, documentation, and support of shareware products. ASP wants to make sure that the shareware principle works for you. If you are unable to resolve a shareware-related problem with an ASP member, the ASP Ombudsman may be able to help. Please write to the ASP Ombudsman at P.O. Box 5786, Bellevue, WA 98006 or send a CompuServe EasyPlex message to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536. 9 Other products from CrossCourt Systems ConvDW - converts IBM DisplayWrite 3 or 4 files to ASCII, offering many of the same options as TextOut/5, including the generic-format option that DW lacks. IBM does not publish the file format for DisplayWrite, so ConvDW is one of only a handful of programs, either shareware or commercial, that can read DisplayWrite files. Usually found as CONVDW.ZIP on bulletin boards. Available for $20 direct (includes printed manual). DisplayWrite Conversion Package - includes a report describing the format of DisplayWrite files, as well as Microsoft C source code for ConvDW, DWtoRFT, and DumpDW. Call for information. DWtoRFT - converts DisplayWrite files to DCA/RFT using wildcard filenames. Great for large conversions from DisplayWrite to other formats. Available for $50 direct. ConvDCA - converts IBM DCA/RFT format files to ASCII, offering many of the same options as TextOut/5. Usually found as CNVDCA.ZIP or CONVDCA.ZIP on bulletin boards. Available for $20 direct. TextCon - a program to reformat ASCII files before importing them to your word processor. TextCon performs extremely intelligent "cleaning" operations on your ASCII files, so you have less editing to do after importing them. It removes unneeded hard carriage returns (even with tricky paragraph formats), strips excess spaces used for margins or justification, and does other processing to get the cleanest conversion possible. Can also perform other unusual formatting tasks such as splitting long lines in generic-format files. Usually found as TEXTCN.ARC or TEXTCON.ARC on bulletin boards. Available for $25 direct (includes printed manual).