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- X W O R D D O C U M E N T A T I O N
-
-
-
-
- By Ronald Gans
-
- 350 West 55th Street #2-E
-
- New York, New York 10019
-
-
- (See the end of this file for registration information)
-
-
-
-
-
- INTRODUCTION Page 1
-
- What You Should Have and What Is Required
-
- There should be two files ARC'd together: XWORD.EXE and XWORD.DOC. The
- only file that is essential to XWORD's operation is XWORD.EXE. XWORD
- should work OK on any IBM PC (IBM PC-XT, IBM PC-AT, or close compatible,
- such as the COMPAQ or AT&T 6300). XWORD.EXE requires about 80K bytes of
- memory and will only work with DOS 2.xx or above. XWORD.EXE senses
- whether the monitor is monochrome or color, but in either case writes
- directly to the screen in the normal video mode. This file, XWORD.DOC,
- should clarify some points of XWORD's operation. See the end of this
- file for information about registration and copyright.
-
- XWORD is a general file format transformer; that is, it converts files
- from one format to another. Selections are made from two menus, "FORMAT
- CONVERTERS" and "LOGICAL AND BIT OPTIONS."
-
- I have made some arbitrary decisions regarding what XWORD does to files.
- Sometimes it is not possible, or not possible without great difficulty,
- to preserve print options between different word processing formats. In
- some of these cases, I have elected to eliminate them and let the user
- re-input them anew. For those word processors which require a line
- length embedded in the files, I have chosen one arbitrarily, based on my
- own experience.
-
- XWORD appends a 1AH to the ends of files under certain options. Those
- options that convert files to ASCII format all append a 1AH to the file.
- This is not required for MS/PC-DOS, but it necessary in CP/M, to which
- ASCII files can be ported.
-
- NON-MS-DOS ORIGIN FILES
-
- A growing number of people are converting files from non-MS-DOS format
- to MS-DOS format. Some of these files come from Apple or from dedicated
- wordprocessors like the Wang or CPT. Even when these files are
- converted into ASCII, frequently the conversion is not like that in the
- MS-DOS environment in that the carriage return-line feed sequence is not
- the same. Usually, instead of a CRLF, there is just a CR. Currently,
- the ASCII to WordPerfect conversion of XWORD will handle either the CR
- or CRLF format (you don't have to know which one you have). However, be
- careful that when the file was converted in ASCII, other formatting
- characters were not included which would make no sense (or have a
- different meaning) in the MS-DOS format. For instance, the soft hyphen
- in CPT format is, I believe, the same as the ">" character in MS-DOS
- ASCII. You will have to weed out these characters in your file.
-
-
- WILDCARDS, DRIVES, and SUBDIRECTORIES
-
- XWORD supports wildcards (* and ?) in the source file name. When
- wildcards are used, XWORD will ask you to supply a target path or drive
- different from that of the source files. If a drive is specified, it
- must have the ":" after the drive letter. If a path is specified, it
- must terminate with the subdirectory delimiter. For most users, this is
- the backwards slash "\" but it can be other characters. Even though
- XWORD should not overwrite source files, the user is STRONGLY ADVISED TO
- MAKE ALL CONVERSIONS ON COPIES OF FILES ONLY, NEVER ON THE ORIGINALS.
- Also NOTE THAT IF WILDCARDS ARE USED, FILES WHICH HAVE IDENTICAL NAMES
- TO THE SOURCE FILES (BUT ARE ON DIFFERENT DIRECTORIES) WILL BE
- OVERWRITTEN.
-
-
-
- Page 2
-
- MENU ONE
-
- REDUCING SPACES
-
- Use only with ASCII or WordStar-compatible files. DO NOT USE WITH
- MULTIMATE FILES OR WITH WORDSTAR 2000 FILES. You will have to reboot if
- you try to load a file processed with the P option into Multimate or
- WordStar 2000.
-
- WORDSTAR, WORDSTAR 2000, AND SIDEKICK
-
- No special precautions need be taken regarding these files. Both
- WordStar and WordStar 2000 will allow any kind of file name. There is
- still a problem with tab handling (by XWORD), but the rest of the
- options of the two should be OK. XWORD will support WordStar 2000's
- JUSTIFY.FRM, RAGGED.FRM, MEMO.FRM, and NORMAL.FRM. It will not support
- the NOFORM.FRM. This format is identical to ASCII. Thus, if converting
- a file produced with WordStar 2000 and NOFORM.FRM, select ASCII as the
- source file format.
-
- Sidekick is compatible with WordStar, BUT, the tabs of files written in
- WordStar's non-document mode show up as capital "I"s in Sidekick. XWORD
- expands expands these tabs so they will appear properly.
-
- If your file in WordStar2000 looks funny when XWORD is through with it,
- place the cursor at the beginning of the paragraph and press any letter
- (you will have to erase the letter you input). This will cause
- WordStar2000 to reformat the paragraph.
-
-
- MULTIMATE
-
- XWORD supports conversion into and out of MultiMate. When converting
- from WordStar, be careful of indents. Make sure that indents begin
- after a hard return or ^PM (equivalent to 0DH). MultiMate requires all
- document files have the extension .DOC; XWORD appends this extension to
- MultiMate-target files. You will notice that the converted Multimate
- file will often have more indents than it should. This is due to the
- algorithm I used; a future version of XWORD will solve this problem. I
- have used XWORD to convert files longer than 70K to MultiMate with no
- problems. Converting into MultiMate with wildcards is the only instance
- in which wildcard use does not result in the original files being
- overwritten, unless they, too, have a .DOC extension. When converting
- OUT of MultiMate, it is strongly advised that you repaginate your
- document before converting. This is because MultiMate does not
- necessarily store the different "pages" in the same order they appear on
- the screen. Page 12, for instance, may not necessarily be after Page
- 11. (This will have no effect on using the file in MultiMate.) This
- may occur if a file is very heavily edited. Repagination helps reduce
- this problem. (But, in any case, when you convert out of MultiMate its
- best to check and see that the file is all there and in the right order.
- If it is not, there will be a large chunk out of order, not just a word
- or two.)
-
- Page 3
-
- XYWRITE II PLUS
-
- No special precautions need be taken here, as XyWrite II is very friendly.
- (XWORD has been tested on Version 1.00.)
-
-
- WORDPERFECT
-
- No special precautions are needed regarding conversion to or from
- WordPerfect. If you want to convert from MultiMate to WordPerfect, you
- might be better served by using WordPerfect's own conversion program.
-
-
-
- MENU TWO
-
- The options on this menu are for bit and byte manipulation. Some of them can
- be used for a quick and dirty type of cryptography. Three of the options
- require the user to input a value in hexadecimal format (digits 0-9 and
- letters A-F, which represent our common notion of 10, 11, 12, to 15); they
- are: AND, OR, XOR. Another one, NOT, requires no other input from the user
- than the source and target file names. ROL and ROR require the user supply a
- number between 1 and 7, inclusive.
-
- The action of NOT, ROL and ROR are fully reversable. That is, if NOT
- FileA produces FileB, and NOT FileB produces FileC, then FileC is
- identical to FileA. ROR (ROtate through Right) and ROL (ROtate through
- Left) circulate the eight bits that compose each byte. ROR 1 time
- shifts the bits in each bit right once; the rightmost bit is moved to
- the leftmost position (this information is merely for the elucidation of
- the user; the user does not have to understand the action of these
- options in order to use them). ROL 1 acts in the same way, but to the
- left. ROR 2 is the same as ROR 1 and then ROR 1 again. If FileA is
- processed with ROR 3, say, producing FileB, and FileB is processed using
- ROL 3, producing FileC, then FileC is identical to FileA. You can use a
- sequence of these options to scramble a file pretty well (but remember
- to record your sequence and go through it in reverse to unscramble it).
- That is, if your sequence was:
-
- ROR 4, NOT, ROL 3, NOT, ROL 2
-
- then to undo this, you must go:
-
- ROR 2, NOT, ROR 3, NOT, ROL 4
-
-
- Page 4
- REPLACE
-
- The last option on this menu, Replace, is different from the others.
- Replace allows the user to replace any text (ASCII) or hexadecimal
- string (a string is a sequence of bytes) by any other text or
- hexadecimal string. The two strings do not have to both be ASCII or
- hex. Additionally, the user can elect to save these strings and reuse
- them (especially useful if they were complicated to figure out). The
- user will be prompted for a source file and then a target file; then,
- whether the string is to be entered in ASCII, hex, or from a previously
- saved file. If the user enters a string in ASCII or hex, XWORD will ask
- if the user wants to save the string. This sequence is repeated for the
- replacement (new) string. Each string can be 30 bytes (characters)
- long. When entering hex, note that each hex digit must be composed of
- two numerals (including letters). Thus, the string more commonly
- written as 0DH,0AH,27H,64H,0FFH, would be enterd as 0D0A2764FF.
-
- Remember that if you Replace a commonly occurring byte in a file with a long
- string, then your target file could become up to 30 times as large as the
- original file.
-
- If you make an error during hex entry, hit the backspace key, and you will be
- reset to the beginning of hex entry. Generally in XWORD, hitting the space
- bar, return, or end key lets you escape from one level of the program to
- another, and, except when files are actually being converted, control-C
- always works.
-
-
- OWNERSHIP, COPYRIGHTS, DISCLAIMERS
-
- XWORD is the property of Ronald Gans; XWORD is unpublished and
- copyrighted. XWORD may not be sold for profit by anyone. If you
- purchased XWORD for more than the price of a disk, shipping, and
- handling, you got taken and should notify me of that fact, along with
- the name of the person or corporation from whom you purchased XWORD.
- XWORD.ARC, XWORD.EXE and XWORD.DOC may be freely copied and
- distributed, BUT ONLY AS LONG AS THEY ARE NOT ALTERED IN ANY WAY BY
- REVERSE PROGRAMMING OR EDITING; IF XWORD.EXE IS DISTRIBUTED IT MUST BE
- ACCOMPANIED BY XWORD.DOC. None of these programs may be altered in any
- way by anyone. No warranty is made or implied about the functioning of
- XWORD on any given system or computer configuration. Ronald Gans is not
- responsible for any damage which may result from the using of XWORD on
- any computer. Having said that, I will also state that I have tested
- XWORD on a variety of computer configurations (all IBM PC compatible)
- and found XWORD to run without damage to these systesm. If you wish an
- alternate version of XWORD, please let me know. Please direct all
- correspondence to:
-
- RONALD GANS
- 350 WEST 55TH STREET
- NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10019
- CompuServe No. 74216,264 Telephone (212) 957-8361
-
- Page 5
-
-
- REGISTRATION
-
- "I" option from Menu One of XWORD.EXE will print out an invoice on your
- printer (assuming you have a printer and it is connected to your
- computer). If you wish to register your copy of XWORD, please fill out
- and mail the invoice form back to me at the above address along with
- $20.00 (N.Y.S. residents please add 8 1/4% sales tax for $21.65). If
- you register, you are entitled to free upgrades for one year (there have
- been many revisions of XWORD since it was first released and I am
- continually working on it). Additionally, if you wish to continue
- receiving upgrades after one year, an additional year will cost only
- $8.00. Planned enhancements for XWORD include, of course, more word
- processing formats (VolksWriter, DCA, among others), greater depth to
- the formats currently supported, along with a greatly enhanced replace
- function allowing for "intelligent" replacement.
-
-
- WordStar and WordStar 2000 are registerd trademarks of MicroPro
- International Corporation. MultiMate is a registered trademark of
- MultiMate International. XyWrite II Plus is a registered trademark of
- XyQuest Inc. Sidekick is a registered trademark of Borland
- International. WordPerfect is a registered trademark of Satellite
- Software. IBM PC, IBM PC-XT, IBM PC-AT are registered trademarks of
- International Business Machines, Inc. AT&T 6300 is a registered
- trademark of American Telephone & Telegraph Company. COMPAQ is a
- registered trademark of COMPAQ Computer Corporation.
-