Category : Word Perfect
Archive   : TO5_205.ZIP
Filename : TEXTOUT5.DOC

TextOut/5 2.05 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 ________
(see "Bill company" below)
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 2.05
WordPerfect 5 to ASCII Conversion Program

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 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.



2


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
in between the filenames. There must be a space before each slash,



3


but none between the slash, the option letters and the string. A
typical command might look like:
TO5 /KT /RS /BB[B] /EB[b] DOC DOC.ASC

Alternatively, you can put the 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 , 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.
Any line in an option file that starts with a semi-colon is taken as a
comment, which can be used to document the file or to temporarily
deactivate an option.

TextOut/5 includes several sample option files that you can use as
models. VENTURA.TO5, XYWRITE.TO5, and PCWRITE.TO5 will translate WP
files into close approximations of the formats of these other
programs. RTF.TO5 will produce output in Microsoft's RTF (Rich Text
Format). REVCODES.TO5 recreates 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 emove 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.



4


2. /KT eep 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 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 eep left 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 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 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.



5


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 /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 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



6


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.

1. /A standard 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:

{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 su

erscript
/BSstring, /ESstring 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, nd ndnote
/BFstring, /EFstring egin, nd ootnote

As described earlier, TextOut/5's default format uses square
brackets to mark footnotes, and backslashes to mark endnotes.



7


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
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 eep paired-stle names
/BYstring, /EYstring egin, nd stle on
/BZstring, /EZstring egin, 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. Then the WP codes [Style On:Heading] and
[Style Off:Heading] would be translated to and
.

5. /KX eep inde entries
/BXstring, /EXstring egin, nd inde
/B2string egin <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.



8


6. /CPstring 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
itself, following the location of each hard return, as shown by
the code that follows this paragraph.

That code would be created by the option /CP. 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 ode for 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.

8. /BDstring, /EDstring egin, nd ocument

The /BD and /ED options specify strings to be written at the
beginning and end of the translated ASCII file. These are useful
only for translations to a few specific ASCII-based file formats.
For example, Rich Text Format (RTF) requires each file to start
with {\rtf1\pc and to end with }, which can be accomplished with
the options /BD{\rtf1\pc and /ED}.

Other Options

1. /KC eep 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 emove 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.



9



3. /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 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
secondary merge files only; this option will convert a standard
document into a single line of text.

5. /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



10


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.

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
contact the ASP Ombudsman at 545 Grover Rd., Muskegon, MI 49442, at
FAX number (616) 788-2765, or by CompuServe Mail to 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



11


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 - a report describing the DisplayWrite
file format and Microsoft C source code for ConvDW, DWtoRFT, and
DumpDW. Call for information.

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).