Re: Xy to Word--OT (a question about using Word)

[Harry Binswanger hb@xxxxxxxx]

Lisa,
Ahhhh. I knew vaguely about Word's ability to change * and _ to formatting,
but I didn't connect with using that feature via a CI in Xy before pasting.
That's easy and, like much in life, obvious *once identified*. Thank you so
much, this will, over time, save me hours of tedious work.

--Harry
I use  for italics and in Xy4.

It's faster and easier to change the file in Xy. I do a wildcard search
and replace  replaced with _ and  with *.

This can also be done in Word:

Open a Xy file in Word, it asks if you want to convert the file and
gives a choice of formats to convert from. This is an option (to ask
what type of format to convert from) you have to check in preferences
in Word. (on Preferences menu--General--"Confirm conversion at open").
When you convert from MD-DOS Text, the guillemots appear in the file
(how you get them otherwise, I haven't a clue). Search and replace
≪MD?IT≫ to _, etc. Using the wildcard choice after clicking "more"
option on the find and replace menu.

You can set preferences in Word so that text surrounded by _ changes to
italics and * changes to bold when you click "autoformat" on the
"format" menu. It also changes quotes to curly quotes. I have added
that function icon (lightning bolt on page) to one of my toolbars. Word
in Mac tells me I can also perform this task by pressing combination of
command+option+K. My Thinkpad also offers a keystroke option.

Whichever way you convert, you end up with a raw "prepared" file from
Xy with no other formatting (no margins, etc, only paragraph and tabs).
Then I create a new file in Word using a previously formatted template
with the styles, etc, that I need.

Copy the prepared Xy file, paste using "paste special" option under the
"edit" menu, as "unformatted text".

I haven't figured out an easy way to go backwards, converting italics
and bold from Word into a text file that will show up in Xy. If I'm
going to be going back and forth a lot, I add a marker before and after
italicized or bolded text that I can search for in Word, then eliminate
the markers for final version with search/replace.

To sum up:

Doing the conversions using Xy's great search and replace functions to
create a "prepared" Xy file, it's a quick operation to create a fully
formatted file in Word.

1. Create file with proper template in Word
2. Open prepared Xy file in Word, using convert from MS-DOS text
option.
3. Copy Xy file, "paste special" as unformatted text in Word file
4. Autoformat for italicized/bolded text

Hope this helps. The key is setting proper preferences in Word. Once
things are set up, it takes only about 30 seconds--and there's no
gobbledy gook to clean up.

Lisa


--- Harry Binswanger  wrote:

> Lisa wrote:
>
> >This is what's easiest for me, because all I really want in Xy is
> bold
> >and italics, which I can convert either in Xy or Word with
> >search/replace.
>
> I'd love to know how to do that in Word. I'm now regularly cutting
> and
> pasting bits from Xy files that have ..... in them, and I
> don't
> know how, in Word, to do a replace that not only eliminates the
>  and
>  but starts and ends italics for the intervening text.
>
>
> Harry Binswanger
> hb@xxxxxxxx
>
>


Harry Binswanger
hb@xxxxxxxx