file conversion (for the umpteenth time)

[Peter Evans peterev@xxxxxxxx]

The way to convert files to/from Xy format from/to a bloatware format is to
use the "new" (1996 or so) Mastersoft/Adobe .EXE files that are
conveniently (illegally?) posted at a Hungarian ftp site, and to use them
as standalones--as Robert Holmgren has explained numerous times, notably on
a web page. (Thanks, Bob!)

I've done this to go from Xy to either MS Turd or (again for MS Turd) RTF.
Incidentally, the Xy file had no particular oddities (or so *I* think)--no
snaking columns, footnotes, endnotes, tables, counters, graphics, etc. And
it was formatted for A4 (I mean the form length and width were explicitly
set within the file for A4).

The conversion was amazingly fast. Turd opened both files with no complaint.

The native Turd file was formatted bizarrely. I forget about the length of
the pages, but they were very wide. The ruler at the top was blank. Any
attempt to reformat the file brought the objection (I translate from the
Japanese) "value must be between 2.6 and 523mm". Well, I forget those
values, but the range was about as great as this and the numbers as
[apparently] arbitrary. No sign of what this value was of (page length?
letter height? . . .) Anyway, the width I'd have liked to set for the
page--though I could never get that far--would easily have fallen in that
range.

After much time-wasting, I gave up.

I opened the .RTF file in Turd. Exactly the same nonsense as with the
XyWin native conversion: it produced a multipage document each consisting
of a single character (because the pages were small and the margins large).
 Turd takes ages to open up a file that has nine-thousand-plus pages. I
can't blame it. Anyway, if I don't mind going out for dinner while it's
doing this, I then mark the entire file and change the paper size and
margins, and after another five minutes or so all is well.

Before I investigate this irritation for myself (e.g. by converting
increasingly complex files, and finding the point at which problems start),
has anyone already experienced it and found the culprit?
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Peter Evans