jfh@enzyme.berkeley.edu (John Heckendorn) (03/07/89)
Well, the news on converting vi-type UNIX files to RTF or another
Macintosh format is that there is currently *no* utility that will
do a complete job. The closest thing is an old (vintage 1987)
program called MakeWrite, which will do some of the typeface
conversions (bold, italic, etc.) and a couple of other things
like smartquotes, but cannot understand complex paragraph
formats or most of the other peculiarities of command-oriented
word processing files.
It wouldn't be exceedingly difficult to write a conversion
utility to translate one particular type of formatted text
file (vi, emacs, Jove, etc.) to another (RTF, MacWrite), given
that the common formats are well-documented, but it would be
a challenge to come up with something to do a conversion from
any selection of one to any selection of another. Re. the former:
Any takers???
John Heckendorn
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
One of these should work...
jfh@enzyme.berkeley.edu apple!bmug!john.heckendorn@sun.com
bmug@garnet.berkeley.edu bmug!john.heckendorn@apple.com
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ech@pegasus.ATT.COM (Edward C Horvath) (03/08/89)
From article <21217@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, by jfh@enzyme.berkeley.edu (John Heckendorn): > Well, the news on converting vi-type UNIX files to RTF or another > Macintosh format is that there is currently *no* utility that will > do a complete job... I don't understand what you want: vi is an editor for straight ascii text, and any Mac WP I've seen is happy to accept straight text. Add a "ruler" with tabs every 8 (or 4, or whatever) spaces, select a fixed-width font (Monaco, Courier) and you've reduced your mac to a vt100. If what you REALLY want is nroff (troff) -> MacWP, then a possible solution is to write a back-end for DITroff (Device-Independent troff). That's how the PostScript printer drivers do the deed. Or, if what you want is reformatted text, try the McSink shareware DA editor (or its commercial version, Vantage); these have options to join-and-wrap text to a variety of boundaries. All these solutions are fairly well-defined and well-understood. So what do you REALLY want? =Ned Horvath=
bmug@garnet.berkeley.edu (BMUG) (03/09/89)
In article <2679@pegasus.ATT.COM> ech@pegasus.ATT.COM (Edward C Horvath) writes: >From article <21217@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, by jfh@enzyme.berkeley.edu (John Heckendorn): >> Well, the news on converting vi-type UNIX files to RTF or another >> Macintosh format is that there is currently *no* utility that will >> do a complete job... > >I don't understand what you want: vi is an editor for straight ascii >text, and any Mac WP I've seen is happy to accept straight text. >Add a "ruler" with tabs every 8 (or 4, or whatever) spaces, select a >fixed-width font (Monaco, Courier) and you've reduced your mac to a vt100. > >If what you REALLY want is nroff (troff) -> MacWP, then a possible solution >is to write a back-end for DITroff (Device-Independent troff). That's how >the PostScript printer drivers do the deed. > >Or, if what you want is reformatted text, try the McSink shareware DA editor >(or its commercial version, Vantage); these have options to join-and-wrap >text to a variety of boundaries. > >All these solutions are fairly well-defined and well-understood. So what >do you REALLY want? > >=Ned Horvath= Well, what I want is reformatted text. That is, I want to be able to convert *all* of the laboriously placed n/troff formatting commands to a Macintosh format which can reproduce their effects in Macland. To wit: converting all \fI, etc., to italics (MakeWrite can already do this much); converting \(*g, etc., to gammas in Symbol font, knowing what .pp, .ip, .ce, and the like are for in terms of paragraph and heading formats, \u and \d for super-, subscripts and returns to normal line formatting, typeface and fontsize changes, and the other two hundred or so formatting commands available for n/troff. From what I can tell, RTF would be the most natural (though not the lowest common denominator) medium, given that most or all of n/troff formatting commands have some analogue in RTF (I don't think the same can be said of MacWrite format, though it's still more or less the lingua franca of Mac WP formats). If somebody out there is interested in writing such a conversion beast, perhaps it would be worth supporting tbl and eqn conversion also (grin). Now it may be possible that Nisus, with its powerful grep facility, and with a few macros, could do the trick; I'm currently trying to get a press eval copy for an analytical review. If I'm successful, and if there's interest, I'll post a summary of my results to the net. Judging from the email response to my first posting, there's certainly a need out there for a conversion utility of the type I've described. John Heckendorn /\ BMUG ARPA: bmug@garnet.berkeley.EDU A__A 1442A Walnut St., #62 BITNET: bmug@ucbgarnet |()| Berkeley, CA 94709 | | (415) 549-2684 | |