Re: Concerning MAILPREP in XYWWWEB115.

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from "M.W. Poirier"  on Tue, 28
Oct 2003 00:14:35 -0400 (EDT)

Maben:

> By jove, you[']r[e] right.

Well, neither right nor wrong. It's just the way PRiNter files have worked for
the past 20 years.

> Now, how do I get it [to] translate [838],
> the copyright symbol, to the word COPYRIGHT.

First of all, ©Copyright isn't 838, it's 184 (169 in ANSI). Go into Graphics
mode if you don't believe me, and look at it (command TABLE CHARSET or
TABLE SPEEDOS for a couple of nice tables with different features).
Second, find the SUbstitution table labeled "SU:437". Go down to character 184
(you can figure out what char 184 looks like in non-Graphics mode on your
system by commanding TABLE CHARSET). Change the spec from
"{char184}=_" to "{char184}=COPYRIGHT". SAve it and test it. Hmmm.

Frankly, that's not what I'd do. Academics are all computer sheep, and they
all use Windows -- 3 guys at MIT excepted. So its a safe bet that they're
gonna read your Email in Outlook and plop it right into M$Word, or the Recycle
Bin -- one or the other. I'd just convert 184 to 169, and let it go at that --
they'll simply see a © symbol.

There's a good reason to do it this way, and it bears upon one of the great,
unforgiveable failings of XyWrite, which is this: If, in the SUbstitution
table, you convert a single character into multiple characters (COPYRIGHT), the
substitution isn't factored into the internal page width calculations of
Editor. Try this experiment. Put five or ten Copyright characters in a row:
{184}M.Polanyi {184}M.Polanyi {184}M.Polanyi {184}M.Polanyi {184}M.Polanyi etc.
Then MAILPREP it, with "{184}=COPYRIGHT" in your SUb table. Look what happens!
The bloody line stretches out about a meter past the right edge of the page!
Result is that your citation gets clipped off the right edge of the page. Not
good.

I'd do the same thing with your accented characters. If you're just concerned
about the French subset, and you're not going to be using other high-order
chars, then it's a fairly simple matter to translate the various vowels into
ANSI. Without getting into Unicode or the intricacies of XyWrite CP 437 vs.
850, here's a simple table of the translations you could make, with *one*
character on either side of the equal sign. Save this out of your Emailer and
CAll it into XyWrite; then cut and paste. N.B. The table will look completely
different in your Emailer than in XyWrite! Afterwards, send a test Email to
yourself to see what it looks like, after you make these adjustments. THEN let
us know. You'll have the snazziest Emails around:

XyWrite=ANSI
128 (?)=199 (Ç)
129 (?)=252 (ü)
130 (?)=233 (é)
131 (?)=226 (â)
132 (?)=228 (ä)
133 (?)=224 (à)
134 (?)=229 (å)
135 (?)=231 (ç)
136 (?)=234 (ê)
137 (?)=235 (ë)
138 (?)=232 (è)
139 (?)=239 (ï)
140 (?)=238 (î)
141 (?)=236 (ì)
142 (?)=196 (Ä)
143 (?)=197 (Å)
144 (?)=201 (É)
145 (?)=230 (æ)
146 (?)=198 (Æ)
147 (?)=244 (ô)
148 (?)=246 (ö)
149 (?)=242 (ò)
150 (?)=251 (û)
151 (?)=249 (ù)
153 (?)=214 (Ö)
154 (?)=220 (Ü)
160 ( )=225 (á)
161 (¡)=237 (í)
162 (¢)=243 (ó)
163 (£)=250 (ú)
164 (¤)=241 (ñ)
165 (¥)=209 (Ñ)
181 (µ)=193 (Á)
182 (¶)=194 (Â)
183 (·)=192 (À)
184 (¸)=169 (©)
198 (Æ)=227 (ã)
199 (Ç)=195 (Ã)
210 (Ò)=202 (Ê)
211 (Ó)=203 (Ë)
212 (Ô)=200 (È)
214 (Ö)=205 (Í)
215 (×)=206 (Î)
216 (Ø)=207 (Ï)
222 (Þ)=204 (Ì)
224 (à)=211 (Ó)
226 (â)=212 (Ô)
227 (ã)=210 (Ò)
228 (ä)=245 (õ)
229 (å)=213 (Õ)
233 (é)=218 (Ú)
234 (ê)=219 (Û)
235 (ë)=217 (Ù)
236 (ì)=253 (ý)
237 (í)=221 (Ý)

-----------------------------
Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
-----------------------------