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TextOut/5 2.0 Payment Form -------------------------- Payment of $20 or more per copy entitles you 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, including a $15 credit toward on-line time. Name ____________________________________________________________ Company _________________________________________________________ Address _________________________________________________________ City ________________________________ State ______ Zip __________ Country _________________________ ORDERING INFORMATION: Number of Disk Price Per Copy Copies Size ($20 suggested) Total ______ _______ __________ ________ Michigan residents, add 4% sales tax ________ Add $5 overseas shipping charge, if applicable ________ Add $5 purchase order processing fee, if applicable ________ TOTAL PAYMENT ________ PAYMENT METHOD: ___ Check enclosed (US Funds): ___ Bill company (for purchase orders under $50 add $5 processing fee) ___ VISA / MasterCard #______________________________ 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 2.0 WordPerfect 5 to ASCII Conversion Program Another Shareware Product from: CrossCourt Systems Member, Association of Shareware Professionals PROGRAM FEATURES TextOut/5 converts WordPerfect 5.0 and 5.1 document files on IBM- compatible computers to ASCII. It is a shareware program complying with the standards of the Association of Shareware Professionals, allowing you to try all features of the program before you buy it. TextOut/5 offers features of WordPerfect's "DOS Text", "generic", and "DOS Text Printer" formats. Its advantages over WordPerfect's translations include the folllowing: 1. TextOut/5 translates text, captions, and equations from graphics boxes, as well as footnotes, endnotes, and comments. 2. TextOut/5 can preserve aspects of page formatting, such as left margins, top margins, page breaks, and line spacing. 3. TextOut/5 formats tables much better than WordPerfect does. 4. TextOut/5 translates over 400 of WordPerfect's special characters to ASCII; WordPerfect translates only 150. 5. TextOut/5 allows you to specify the line length you want in the ASCII file, without any reformatting on your part. 6. TextOut/5 can insert ASCII strings to mark many formatting attributes, from boldface to index entries, allowing translations to desktop publishers, typesetters, and word processors. 7. TextOut/5 runs from the DOS command line, accepts wildcard filespecs, and is faster than WordPerfect. 8. TextOut/5 can recover text from damaged files that WordPerfect will not load. TextOut/5's default output is 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. It omits most page-formatting characteristics, such as margins, page breaks, headers, footers, page numbering, line-spacing, and top-to- bottom-centering. The format is suitable for electronic mail and many other purposes. TextOut/5 can optionally create formats similar to WordPerfect's "generic" and "DOS Text Printer" output. See the "OPTIONS" section for more information. 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. 3 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 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 normally placed at the end of the ASCII file, although there is an option to keep them inline where they occur. 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 backslashes, e.g. \3\, although both of these can be changed. For "Fast-Saved" documents, TextOut/5 will warn you that the formatting may not be up-to-date. 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 WP Setup 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 on the command line. The options start with a slash or a hyphen, followed by a one- or two- letter option code, and, for some of the options, an ASCII string. The identifying code letters can be upper or lower case and the options can appear anywhere on the command line -- before, after, or 4 in between the filenames. There must not be any spaces between the slash, the letters and the string. A typical command might look like: TO5 /KT /RS /BB[B] /EB[b] DOC DOC.ASC You can also put option codes in an ASCII file and use the /F option on the command line to tell TextOut/5 to read options from the file. This is useful if you have a standard set of options that you use frequently. It also gets around DOS's restrictions on which characters can appear in a string on the command line and on the total length of the command line. If, for example, you want to mark the start of boldface text with <Bold>, you cannot specify this on the command line because DOS attaches a special meaning to the symbols < and >. To use the /F option, follow it with the name (including the full path, if desired) of the text file that contains your other option values: TO5 TEST.WP5 TEST.OUT /FMYOPTION.TO5 There must be no spaces between the F and the filename. If you use the /F option without a filename, TextOut/5 will look for a file called CONFIG.TO5 in the current directory. Each line in the option file may contain only a single option specification, starting with the slash (or hyphen) in column 1. The lines must not contain spaces, unless the particular option calls for an ASCII string value and you want a space to be part of the string. TextOut/5 includes several sample option files: VENTURA.TO5, XYWRITE.TO5, and PCWRITE.TO5 which produce files suitable for those programs; and REVCODES.TO5, which would recreate in the ASCII file many of the same code names that WP uses in Reveal Codes. "Generic Format" Options These options are usually used together to produce a format like WordPerfect's "Save As Generic" command. This format has tabs and carriage returns exactly where the operator originally typed them, with no spaces added and with soft returns removed. This is usually the best format to use to transfer an ASCII file to another word processor. 1. /RS <R>emove <S>oft returns This will remove all of WordPerfect's soft returns, in effect turning each paragraph into a single long line of text. The target word processor can then reformat paragraphs into new margins. 2. /KT <K>eep <T>ab characters This will keep tab characters in the ASCII file, rather than replacing them with spaces. It differs slightly from 5 WordPerfect's generic format, in that it does not insert unwanted spaces to position text that is centered or flush right. 3. /I nline foot/endnotes This 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 number is omitted, and the content of the note takes its place, enclosed either in square brackets (for footnotes) or backslashes (for endnotes). Use the /BF, /EF, /BE, and /EE options if you want to use different ASCII strings as markers. Layout Options 1. /KM <K>eep left <M>argin This tells TextOut/5 to keep the left margin settings of the document, translating margin changes to the corresponding number of spaces in the ASCII file. 2. /KP <K>eep age format This tells TextOut/5 to keep much of the page formatting of the document. Each page break is translated to an ASCII form feed, and the top margin of the document is written out as blank lines, at six lines per inch. The WordPerfect line spacing is also preserved, except that fractional line spacing is reduced to the next lower integer spacing. The /RS option overrides the /KP option, so that /KP has only one effect -- to translate hard page breaks to form feeds. Also, reformatting resulting from the /L# option may produce page lengths that are longer or shorter than expected. 3. /L# line <L>ength Documents that are formatted with small fonts or for wide pages may have very long lines when translated to ASCII. Similarly, documents that are formatted in columns may have very short lines. Such long or short lines may be undesirable in the ASCII file, so TextOut/5 lets you change the line length. The /L# option tells TextOut/5 to reformat the document to 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. 6 With some documents, of course, it is impossible to shorten the line length without ruining the formatting. The /L option overrides the /RS option. 4. /P# tab-fill itch Word Perfect 5 measures all tabs, centering, etc. in absolute units, i.e. inches, while allowing you to intermix different font sizes. This can cause inconsistencies in spacing when converting to ASCII files, where inches and font sizes are meaningless. For each document, WordPerfect calculates the "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, giving a typical 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. 5. /RB <R>emove lank lines This tells TextOut/5 to remove blank lines from the document. This is useful for typesetting and publishing software, which generally don't need the extra blank lines that word processing files often have between paragraphs. 6. /1 single spacing in tables TextOut/5 normally double- spaces between rows in tables. The /1 option tells TextOut/5 to use single spacing instead. Formatting Attribute Options These options translate many of WordPerfect's formatting attributes and codes to ASCII strings. They allow exact conversions of attributes to ASCII-based file formats used by certain publishing, typesetting, and word processing packages, such as Ventura and XyWrite. For non-ASCII-based packages, you can often use macros to further convert the strings back to the desired codes. These conversions often require the use of long strings, as well as characters having special meaning on the DOS command line, so it's often necessary to use the /F option to read the options from a file. 7 1. /A standard <A>ttribute marking This enables TextOut/5's standard attribute marking, designed for files that will be displayed or printed. It offers a quick and easy way to mark most character formatting for visual emphasis. Five different character attributes are marked, using a single character where the attribute begins and a single character (sometimes the same one) where the attribute ends. The following examples show the beginning and ending characters used for each of the attributes: <Boldface> {Italic} ^Superscript^ /Subscript/ _Underline_ To specify your own custom strings for marking of character attributes, use the separate /B... and /E... options described below. If you use any of them in conjunction with /A, they will override the corresponding /A defaults. 2. /BBstring, /EBstring oldface /BIstring, /EIstring talic /BPstring, /EPstring suerscript /BSstring, /ESstring <S>ubscript /BUstring, /EUstring nderline These allow you to specify strings to mark the beginning (/B...) and end (/E...) of many WordPerfect character attributes. They can be used either for visual emphasis (as a custom version of the /A option) or to translate the WordPerfect file to a format useful for import to another program, such as typesetting software. For example, the options /BB /EB would cause TextOut/5 to write out the ASCII string wherever Reveal Codes shows [BOLD], and wherever Reveal Codes shows [bold]. If used with the /A option, any of these options overrides the default /A marking for the corresponding attribute. 3. /BEstring, /EEstring egin, <E>nd <E>ndnote /BFstring, /EFstring egin, <E>nd <F>ootnote As described earlier, TextOut/5's default format uses square brackets to mark footnotes, and backslashes to mark endnotes. These four options allow you to specify alternatives to those defaults. In TextOut/5's standard output format, which collects the notes at the end of the text, these options change the characters that surround the note number in the text, but have no effect on the 8 format of the notes themselves. For example, using the options /BF/ and /EF would tell TextOut/5 to use a single slash at the beginning of footnote numbers and nothing at the end, like this/2. Alternatively, if you use the /I option to place notes inline, these options change the characters that surround the note itself, setting it off from the text. For example, using the options /BE{E$ and /EE} would tell TextOut/5 to show endnotes as {E$endnote text}. 4. /KY, /KZ <K>eep paired-st<Y>le names /BYstring, /EYstring egin, <E>nd st<Y>le on /BZstring, /EZstring egin, <E>nd style off These options allow translation of WordPerfect paired-style (but not open-style) codes into paragraph tags, used in ASCII formats destined for publishing software. The /KY option directs TextOut/5 to keep the style name from each paired Style On code in the translated ASCII file. You must use the /KY option in order for the /BY and /EY options to have any effect. The /BY and /EY options specify the strings to be written at the beginning and end of the style name. The /KZ, /BZ, and /EZ options perform the same function as /KY, /BY, and /EY, but for Style Off codes rather than Style On codes. So, for example, to get SGML-format tags, you would use /KY /BY< /EY> /KZ /BZ</ /EZ>. Then the WP codes [Style On:Heading] and [Style Off:Heading] would be translated to <Heading> and </Heading>. 5. /KX <K>eep inde<X> entries /BXstring, /EXstring egin, <E>nd inde<X> /B2string egin, <E>nd <2>ndary index The /KX option directs TextOut/5 to keep the index entries from WordPerfect index codes in the ASCII file. You must use the /KX option in order for the /BX, /B2 and /EX options to have any effect. The /BX and /EX options specify the strings to be written at the beginning and end of the index entry. The /B2 option specifies the string to be written at the beginning of a secondary (subheading) index entry. So, for example, the options /BX[I$ /EX] /B2; would result in the ASCII code [I$table] for an entry with only a heading, and [I$table;generate] for an entry with a subheading. 6. /CPstring <C>ode for aragraph end This specifies a code to be written at the end of each paragraph, which can be useful when transferring the ASCII file to typesetting software. TextOut/5 writes this code on a line by 9 itself, following the location of each hard return, as shown by the code that follows this paragraph. <EP> That code would be created by the option /CP<EP>. Most software that recognizes codes for hard returns does not expect blank lines in the file, so you would usually use this option along with the /RB option, to remove blank lines. 7. /CTstring <C>ode for <T>abs This specifies a code to be written to the ASCII file in place of each tab character. This option will have no effect unless you also use the /KT option, to keep tabs, because otherwise the tabs are converted to spaces. Other Options 1. /KC <K>eep <C>omments This tells TextOut/5 to keep document comments in the ASCII file. Each comment is preceded by --COMMENT-- and followed by --ENDCOMMENT--. In the standard format, each of these appear on its own separate line; if /RS is used, they are embedded in the text. 2. /RNstring <R>emove <N>on-ASCII Normally, TextOut/5 translates many of WordPerfect's special characters into IBM extended-ASCII codes 128-254. This can cause problems if a file is sent through electronic mail or in other circumstances. The /RN option limits the output file to the printable characters (32 through 126) plus carriage return, line feed, and, if /KT or /KP are used, tab characters and form feeds. Other characters are converted to the closest ASCII character. If no similar ASCII character is available, and the /RN option does not include a string, a space is substituted. If the /RN option does include a string, such as /RN{?}, that string is substituted. 3. /Q <Q>uiet mode TextOut/5 normally displays messages on the screen about each of the options selected by the user. The /Q option suppresses these messages. It does not suppress the copyright message or the display of input and output filenames. 4. /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 10 secondary merge files only; this option will convert a standard document into a single line of text. 5. /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, to 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. 11 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 for 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 Mail message to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536. Other products from CrossCourt Systems ConvDW - converts IBM DisplayWrite 3, 4, or 5 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. 12 ConvDCA - converts IBM DCA/RFT 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.ZIP or TEXTCON.ZIP on bulletin boards. Available for $25 direct (includes printed manual).