Re: XYWRITE digest 2367

["Gochnauer, Myron L" goch@xxxxxxxx]

Patricia suggested what is my normal technique for serious editing of Word or
WordPerfect documents: save as RTF, import into XyWrite, and get the work done!

In the past I've mentioned the drawback to this approach:

The RTF filter produces XyWrite files full of unnecessary codes. (This may be a result
of the way RTF codes things, not a defect in the filters. NB's newest filter produces
similarly cluttered output.)

I seem to recall that some work was being done on an XPL program that would clean up
these files, but at the time it was still not wholly successful. Has any further work
being done on this while I wasn't paying attention?

A utility that removed code not needed by XyWrite would be *very* useful.

If I recall correctly, the major redundancies in converted RTF files occur at the
beginnings of paragraphs, where things like indentation-definitions are repeated. RTF
conversions do not rely on XyWrite's continue-the-code-until-it-is-changed approach, so
formatting is often repeated because a new paragraph has begun or because a related
code has been changed (eg, repeat the typeface code whenever there is a size change).

What we need are XPL routines that would, for example, "note" the Indent Paragraph
setting (like ≪IP0.25IN,0IN≫) and then search for the next IP code. If it were the
same, it would be deleted, otherwise it would replace the "noted" value and the search
would continue. This process could then be used for things like typeface (UF), typesize
(SZ), offset (OF), tabs (TS), etc.

Myron