chuq@plaid.Sun.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (01/23/88)
HYPER-HACKERS Digest Vol. 1 #12
January 22, 1988
Subjects:
Re: Importing into a stack.
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Date: Mon, 18 Jan 88 21:18:27 CST
From: Herb Barad <tulane!barad>
Subject: Re: Importing into a stack.
>I have a number of entries in FileMaker + for my thesis. Having
>recently started to look at Xref which is a stack which was posted in
>the binaries board, I needed to import those files into Xref. File
>Maker lets you save files with tab or comma delimitors. Most buttons
>let you bring import files into hypercard as a new stack. This problem
>must have been solved before. Could some one PLEEASE mail me a button
>script that will save me from having to retype all those files.
Well, I feel somewhat responsible for this. No, I don't happen to have
such a button. I was planning on putting in an importing function into
Xref, but I never got around to it (I was scampering around finishing
my thesis).
Here's a suggestion - maybe (???) it will help. Copy the scripts from
one of these universal import stacks into Xref. Then alter it to
create a new card of the proper background - NOTE that the proper
background must be used since it is different for articles, books,
technical reports, journals, etc.
Xref was a great hack and aid for myself. I have heard that others are
using it and that they find it somewhat useful. I'm still a little
skeptical of it as I wish I had the time for a polished stack.
WARNING: many of the limitations from creating bibliographies that I
found were not limitations on Xref, but on MS Word (no surprise
there!). For example, when creating the bibliography section from the
merge file, you will find that Word will run out of memory when
processing > 15 references (arggh). Workaround: just process about 10
at a time (I had 82) and append them together - a pain, but fairly
simple. Another limitation, Word only allows up to 128 merge
variables! Therefore, if you have > 128 cross-references (and I would
think that most theses do) then you might have to do the substitution
by hand. I have found these EXTREMELY frustrating and that is why I
have not upgraded Xref now that I'm finished my thesis.
I hope that anyone who has used Xref has found it useful. It is slow
and MS Word limitations can make it frustrating for large documents.
I hear FullWrite has bibliography handling...
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