tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) (01/30/91)
In article <9101301059.AA29311@lilac.berkeley.edu> lwv27@CAS.BITNET writes: >I know this is going to sound strange. But I would like to be able >to turn a Postscript document into a plain text file. I suspect you could hack GhostScript to do this by redefining "show." But read on... > The reason is >that I would like to run it thru a spelling checker - and I have yet >to find one which can interpret most PostScript mangled texts. For instance, >most words in such documents do not even appear as words, but as pieces >of words positioned on the page... The problem here is what you do AFTER you've spell checked the text file! You need to rebuild the PostScript again afterwards if what you wanted was a spell-checked, printer-ready document. So, if you have something that lets you take text and reformat it as PostScript, why not do your spell checking in the text itself BEFORE creating any PS? Because, after all -- PostScript positions the text very precisely where it's supposed to go to make a nicely formatted document. ESPECIALLY in the documents Larry mentions above where words themselves are split! If you plow through that kind of PostScript changing c/thub/thumb/ and c/pinochio/Pinocchio/, you will mess up the layout. Despite these logistical problems, a text filter would be nice to have, bearing in mind that order-on-page is entirely arbitrary. -- 'The Nazis have no sense of humor, so why -| Tom Neff should they want television?' -- Phil Dick |- tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM
lwv27@CAS.BITNET (01/30/91)
I know this is going to sound strange. But I would like to be able to turn a Postscript document into a plain text file. The reason is that I would like to run it thru a spelling checker - and I have yet to find one which can interpret most PostScript mangled texts. For instance, most words in such documents do not even appear as words, but as pieces of words positioned on the page... any ideas? -- Larry W. Virden UUCP: osu-cis!chemabs!lwv27 Same Mbox: BITNET: lwv27@cas INET: lwv27%cas.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.Edu Personal: 674 Falls Place, Reynoldsburg,OH 43068-1614 America Online: lvirden