Re: WordPort conversion filters

[Robert Hemenway robhem@xxxxxxxx]

At 10:32 AM 11/5/99 -0500, leslie bialler wrote:
>
>

Re: WordPort conversion

>Robert,
>
>Thanks for the info. A question: my biggest beefs with WFW filters are:
>
>1. There is no way to configure it so that it will _ignore_ formatting you
have
>no use for anyway. Therefore, as I suspect you have noticed, one often gets
>conversions filled with meaningless font specifications and color modes.
>
>2. In converting _from_ XyWrite back to Word, the SS/US commands don't filter
>through properly. This applies in Word Perfect as well.
>
>How does WordPort deal with the above?

>Leslie Bialler, Columbia University Press

Leslie--

I haven't done enough with WordPort to be altogether certain of the answers
to your questions. You might try asking on their website, www.acii.com.

1. So far as I can see, the WordPort customization file lets you defeat
most formatting in the original file and lets you set your own, with
commands like "Keep_Font_Name N"--where default is Y and N is No--and then
give your own font spec. You can direct the program to convert italic to
underline, etc. Handy--to take a simple example--if you're converting an
author's disk files from an attempt at pretty formatting to the Courier
with underlining you want for hard copy. There are 20 single-spaced pages
in my printout of the WordPort manual that deal solely with the
customization commands.

2. Can WordPort deal with style counters? I dunno. Can any conversion
program now? From what I recall seeing here, Xy>Word conversions bungle the
SS/US counters. Nota Bene for Windows is using WordPort for its
conversions, from what Dorothy Day says. Someone who has NB for Windows
might be able to tell you. (I'm waiting, since I can upgrade from the NB I
have later on.) I haven't worked with styles much. The straightforward
formatting commands that are all I usually need are on the keyboard, and
I've made templates for letters, etc.

The WordPort manual has a full page of notes on the way it handles Xy's
files. Reminds you that in the absence of a counter in the file it must use
Xy's standard default formatting value, since it can't see changes you may
have made in the .DFL file. (This saved me a lot of trouble, since I've
changed some of those commands in the my DFL. I use a different DFL file
when I'm working on stuff that will be converted to Word.) And WordPort
notes that Xy's counters for automatic numbering and its markers for
indexing and table-of-contents lists are more extensive than those of other
word processors--that WordPort must make "certain assumptions" in
converting them and may guess wrong.

Nota Bene's styles are more elaborate than Xy's. There are predefined
academic styles for the Chicago Manual, the APA, the MLA, Turabian, and I
think others You can create and save up to nine customized styles. The NB
manual for NB4/DOS (there's no manual for NBWin but it's still available
the last I heard with NB4/DOS) has fifty pages on styles. The XyWin manual
has fifteen.

That's about all I can tell you. Wish that I could give you more definite
answers.

Robert Hemenway