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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
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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
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"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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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).