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; JUST.COM Size (recs) CRC Version Author/Latest Issue Disk JUST.COM 4k (32) 06A9 1.3 Gene Pizzetta 10/91 Z3COM10 1- Syntax/Options 2- Justification Method 3- Notes JUSTIFY is a ZCPR3 version of Irv Hoff's utility (3/8/88) to justify ASCII and WordStar text files with many new features. Very fast and easy to use, it makes even margins by a unique fill method that produces handsome documents. Based on the FILT7 program, JUSTIFY resets high bits, removes control char- acters, expands tabs, removes trailing spaces, eliminates orphan line feeds, and normalizes binding spaces and soft carriage returns. Soft hyphens are changed to normal hyphens at the end of the line, but eliminated elsewhere. Under ZSDOS or ZDDOS, JUSTIFY will transfer the create date stamp from the source file to the new file. If the source file has no create date, the source file's modify date will be used instead. :1 Syntax JUSTIFY {dir:}infile {dir:}{outfile} {{/}options} Everything is optional, except the source file. If no DIR or DU is given, the current drive and user is assumed. If no destination file is given, it will have the same name as the source file, but with a filetype of "JUS". If an existing file has the same name as the destination file, the existing file will be renamed to filetype "BAK". On error, such as an invalid directory or a file not found, JUSTIFY sets the program error flag to the standard codes listed in Z34ERR.LIB and invokes the error handler. Even a user abort via ^C invokes the error handler so a pending SUB or ZEX operation can be aborted. Options - 1/3 A leading slash is necessary unless the option list is the third parameter on the command line. nn Text width. The width of the line (right margin column) used for justifying. The default, as distributed, is 65. S Justify lines starting with a space. If you wish to indent the first line of each paragraph, you still want them justified. There are two ways to accomplish this. Use the S option or use the "]" in-text character in the first column of each indented line. The S option requires nothing special in the source file; however, if you have other lines that are indented but should not be justified, they will be justified too. In that case you need to use a ";" at the beginning of each line not to be justified. Options - 2/3 L Justify lines regardless of original length. Normally lines are not justified if it would require more than two spaces between words. If some lines need more spaces, the L option must be used to totally fill the line. But then even short lines will be justified, such as: such as this one which could have been prevented by using: ;such as this one The ";" is dropped and the word "such" started at the left margin. If option L is not used, however, short lines are left alone and all but the very worst lines will be justified. If a line is not justified, chances are excellent that the lengthy word on the next line can be hyphenated to allow part of it to be placed on the current line. Options - 3/3 F Retain embedded form feeds. Normally, form feeds, like all other control characters are removed from the file. With the F option, form feeds are preserved. Q Toggle quiet mode. This options normally puts JUSTIFY into quiet mode. If the quiet flag is set, however, this option will toggle back to verbose mode. All options may be configured as the defaults. In that case the command line option will toggle the option off. In-Text Special Characters The characters must appear in the first column of the line they affect. Normally none of these special characters are required. ) Center this line. Centering a line is easy to do. Just type the ")" right parens character at the left margin and then move the line to be centered against that character: )This line will be centered )So Will this one )This too ] Justify this indented paragraph. The "]" right bracket forces the justification of lines that are indented, when you have not selected option S to justify lines beginning with spaces. The bracket will be changed to a space, so the length of the line and the number of columns intended will be kept intact. ; Do not justify this line. A semi-colon ";" in the left column prevents justification of the line. It is probably seldom needed. :2 Justification Method - 1/6 Irv Hoff W6FFC - PRACSA RCPM The JUSTIFY fill method differs significantly from WordStar, Word Perfect, and other common justification algorithms: 1. Never puts an extra "fill blank" between the first two or last two words, unless those are required. 2. Justifies the center of the first line, the right side of the second line, and the left side of the third line. It always moves in one additional word at each end to do this. 3. Never puts any extra blanks in a location where two blanks already exist. 4. Fills the final line of a paragraph if it is within 4 characters of normal length. Justification Method - 2/6 The word "justify" as used in this discussion means "to fit exactly, to fill a full line." Consequently, a program that justifies will fill each line to the same width, producing even margins on both sides of the page. To do this with a normal typewriter or computer display requires inserting "fill blanks" (extra spaces) between words at various plaes on the line. No matter how this is accomplished, it produces text that has "holes" in it. This detracts to some extent from reading that text in a normal manner. Adding these extra "fill blanks" in the least obtrusive manner then becomes very important. WordStar (currently version 4.0) is by a wide margin the most popular word processor program for people with CP/M computers. Ironically this is the very worst program available with regard to adding fill blanks for justification. You may wish at this time to stop and read FORMAT.INF, included with this distribution, which goes into some depth showing why this statement is not overstated and shows examples of the juvenile method WordStar uses. (I've been known in the past to say even a child in Kindergarten could have thought up a better method.) Justification Method - 3/6 To quickly summarize, for WordStar 4.0, the first fill blank needed is always placed between the last two words on the right side. The second is always placed between the first two words. Any others alternate from right to left. This means every line not already the correct length will have an extra blank between the last two words. The worst case would be where you need three or more additional fill blanks and the end of the sentence is something like this: ...this is the end of the sentence. I ^^ two blanks after justification with WordStar 4.0, the same line: ...this is the end of the sentence. I ^^^^ four blanks Justification Method - 4/6 This "worst possible case" is not as unusual with the WordStar program as you might at first think. Winding up with three sequential blanks is quite common. Why "yet another" program? I started to write a new DOC file for a differ- ent program I have been working with for some time. A comparable program with a fine DOC file already exists. It was written via WordStar and justified to 64 columns. In trying to read that file, I kept getting distracted by the manner in which WordStar justifies its text. I kept wanting to redo that part so I could then read the text for content rather than be annoyed by the format. The manual did look great, from a distance. I thought my DOC file might look better if it had justified margins. To do this I needed two things: 1. A program that would insert fill characters in a more logical manner than WordStar, and 2. Since I don't use/care for WordStar, would need to obtain another program for that purpose. Justification Method - 5/6 About that time, somebody uploaded ALPHA20.LBR to the local BBS that I operate. It meant I could write the text (as I am doing now) with my normal editor (VEDIT, in my case) and then run it through a format program to add justification. Unfortuantely that fizzled out when I found that ALPHATXT does not recog- nize lines already the correct length. It was essentially a program that wants to format files and then add justification. I then heard of ROFF4 and later RNF13. Both these programs are patterned after an UNIX program of the early 80's called RUNOFF. They both do an excellent job of reformatting and will quit at that point if you like. Just what I wanted. In fact, as the examples in FORMAT.INF show, these programs can take badly munged text and make it into a perfectly formatted output file. They will also justify to even margins while formatting, if you wish. Justification Method - 6/6 Either was quite close to what I had in mind. However ROFF4 doesn't properly justify lines already the proper length and thinks they are one char- acter too long. All these programs mentioned so far have the same fault illustrated above for WordStar - they can wind up with four blanks in a row. Three at these locations is commonplace. Although both these programs alternate from right side to left side with fill blanks, they always start with the last two words on one line and the first two words on the next line. I decided it was time I stop "just thinking about" a program I had written in 1976 for ham radio use and adapt it to CP/M. At that time I assumed my work would be considered very elementary by any professional programmer. It was an interesting program that would justify conversational messages, as you typed them, in real time, over ham radio. It is so very fast and so easy to use, you might even go out of your way to put out justified text, now. (I've been using it extensively on the pre-typed messages I write for batch uploading to CompuServe.) By using ROFF4 or RNF13, you can re-format existing text files to 72 columns and then run them through JUSTIFY quite quickly and easily. You might indeed prefer the new appearance of those files. :3 JUST Notes - 1/2 a. Vs 1.3 updates (9/30/91, Gene Pizzetta): - Now checks for ambiguous filenames before doing anything. - Made display of line-count progress reports a configurable option. b. Vs 1.2 updates (9/10/91, Gene Pizzetta): - Separate assembly without video highlighting no longer supported, but now uses ZSLIB HIVON and HIVOFF instead of much larger VLIB routines. - Since size was no longer a problem, some of the code was uncrunched to make it more straightforward. c. Vs 1.1b updates (9/4/91, Bruce Morgen): - Tweaked code and used VLIB11 (slower, but smaller when only a few routines are called). - Video-enabled version now 32 records, vanilla version now 30 records. JUST Notes - 2/2 d. Vs 1.1 updates (8/31/91, Gene Pizzetta): - Disassembled enough to change to a relocatable file. - Changed to Z80 opcodes to partially compensate for space used by additional features. - Replaced some routines with library routines. - Removed requirement for output filename. - Changed key options to command line entry. - Fixed bug that was eliminating soft hyphens at the end of a line, not just in the middle of the line. - Changed some messages to make them more descriptive. - Added DU support, intelligent usage screen, error flag setting, error handler invocation, quiet mode, command line column count entry, and ZCNFG configuration. - Under ZSDOS and ZDDOS file create date stamps are transferred to the new file.