[bksvol-discuss] Re: Word on Page Breaks from Jim Fruchterman
- From: talmage@xxxxxxxxxx
- To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 09 Jan 2005 10:39:22 -0500
Hi All,
Once again, the dreaded page break issue.
In checking out MS-Word, I now understand why page breaks are lost when you
save it back to a text file. In Microsoft's infinite wisdom, the ASCII
character they have chosen to represent a new page character is the
Ctrl-M. Unfortunately, the standard ANSI ASCII form feed character is the
Ctrl-L, and a Ctrl-M is the carriage return. So when MS reads a txt file,
it converts Ctrl-L to Ctrl-M, and when writing a txt file it doesn't
convert them back.
Now for those who are really, really, dedicated to editing a txt file, and
without a text editor that can properly handle text files, I have a
possible solution, but you'll have to want to put up with the pain and
suffering of a number of extra steps.
First, you'll need to use the method that Jamal suggested, and when you
first open the txt file in Word you will need to do a search and replace
for all the hard page breaks, and replace them with a unique character
string. For the search field you would enter "^m", and for the replace
field I guess I would use something like "^l@*@^l". You wouldn't include
the quotes in the string, and in Microsoft's bent world the ^m represents
a hard page break, while a Manual line break is represented by a ^l. This
will isolate your unique character string on a line and make editing the
file a bit easier.
You can now go about editing your file, but when you save it, you should
pick RTF format from the Save As file option. You should also be careful
that you set your margins to 0, your page height and width to their max, so
you aren't introducing any new soft page breaks or line breaks. If it
makes it easier for editing, you can do that just prior to the last step,
as long as you set them for the entire document.
After you have finished editing, and you've saved it, you can now put the
hard page breaks back in. For the search string you would of course use
"^l@*@^l" and for the replace string you would use "^m", once again with
out the quotes. Hopefully, the number of items replaced will be the same
this time as the first time.
Now the final step would be to print the document to a Generic Text File,
and be advised, this can take quite a while. With the txt file I tested,
it took about 15-20 minutes for a txt file that ended up around
425KB. That's why I said you really have to be dedicated to the concept of
editing a text file, and don't have an alternative way of doing it. The
file that results will have an extension of .PRN, and you will need to
ditch the PRN in favor of TXT by renaming it when the print job is done.
Now if you don't have a Generic Text printer setup under your printer
choices, you will of course need to set one up first before you try to
print to a file. I waited until now, to mention it because I imagine about
90% of the readers have already deleted this message after deciding it is
too much of a pain in the ---.
To set up a Generic Text Printer:
click Start,
go to settings,
click on printers,
click add new printer,
click next,
pick local printer,
click next
down arrow in the "port to use" section until "Print to File" is hi-lited,
click next
move to generic
hit tab,
Generic/Text Only should be hi-lited, but if not move to it,
click next
Give the printer a name or accept the one given, it should also ask if you
want to make this the default printer, you should make sure you don't
select that
click next or finish (I stopped here so I wouldn't mess up the one I have
installed so I'm not sure which appears)
This was the method for Windows XP Home, but it is very similar to the
other versions of Windows. Cindy if you have made it this far without
deleting, then my answer is I don't know if it is similar for the Mac.
Now that your printer is set up, when you want to print to it in Word, you
do it the normal way, but select the Generic/Text Only printer instead of
your default, check print to file, and then click Ok. It will then prompt
for a file name, and I always keep them short so they are easy to
remember. Click Ok, and then go out for a cup of coffee.
It is very, very important that you've set the top and left margin to 0 in
the document, or you will add blank lines at the top of each page and
spaces for a left margin if you didn't. You should also probably stay away
from bold, underlining, and italics when you are editing, after all this is
a text file and they probably weren't there to begin with. The way they
used to handle bold characters and underlining was to type the character,
backspace, and hit the character again or the underline. This can make for
very disconcerting reading.
If you want to check out the result, you can of course load it in Word to
check it out, but don't, don't save it again or you've just wasted allot of
time.
This may seem like allot of work, but once you have the printer set up, it
really isn't bad. It is just time consuming when you actually start
printing the file to disk.
Now if you read all this, you have already proved yourself dedicated, or as
foolish as I am for going through all this.
Dave
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