Re: [NTG-context] Ugly hack for multiple MSWord docs.
On Jun 13, 2006, at 5:29 PM, John R. Culleton wrote:
Frequently I find myself in the position of needing to combine
several MSWord and/or rtf documents into a single file for either
pdftex or Context. I have settled on this strategy.
snip
Someday there will be an elegant solution to the MSWord to
Context problem. For now there is my ugly hack as described here.
MEMORY DISCLAIMER: In these examples none of the function names are
really what they are in Word or VB for Word. The functions are
available in VB for Word, but it's been some time since I've done
this, i don't have the macros these days and don't really know the
real names anymore. So they are just representative of the functions
available.
STYLE COMMENT: These methods should work even if styles are not being
used. For example the primary heading may be Arial, 18pt, bold and
not the Heading 1 style. That's okay because you can search for font
attributes in Word. If the document is not consistent, well, convert
to text and markup manually. :)
MORE OR LESS CURRENT EXAMPLE
It's not particularly elegant, but I used to convert from MSWord to
whatever by writing VB find/replace macros based on styles and
formatting. In newer versions of Word (at least on OS X), Replace has
a function that includes what you found, plus you can add other text.
Example:
Find: Heading 1%find stuff formatted with heading 1 style
Replace: \subject{WhatItFound} %replaces what it found and
wraps \subject{} around it.
Because Word stores its formatting in the line feed/carriage return,
for paragraph styles you end up with something like this:
\subject{Some TeX
}
So my last VB find/replace removes the carriage returns globally:
Find: ^p}
Replace: }
When done with all find/replace functions, save as text.
That's it.
Not being much of a script writer, I record the first find/replace,
then edit the macro and duplicate the find/replace as needed.
The VB find/replace function has options for starting at the top of
the file, replacing globally, continuing if nothing is found and that
sort of thing.
The macro looks something like this:
Find: Heading 1%find stuff formatted with heading 1 style
Replace: \subject{WhatItFound} %replaces what it found and
wraps \subject{} around it.
Find: Heading 2%find stuff formatted with heading 2 style
Replace: \subsubject{WhatItFound} %replaces what it found and
wraps \subsubject{} around it.
Find: Heading 3%find stuff formatted with heading 3 style
Replace: \subsubject{WhatItFound} %replaces what it found and
wraps \subsubsubject{} around it.
The above method uses global replacement and it's pretty zippy, for
Word.
ANOTHER OLDER METHOD
Another method I used before Find/Replace had the WhatItFound
function was to put the found string into a variable, then use that
variable for the replacement text, plus any TeX control sequences
wrapped around it.
In summary:
1. Put your finds and replaces in an array:
ArrayFind(0) Heading 1; ArrayReplace(0) \subject{
ArrayFind(1) Heading 2; ArrayReplace(1) \subsubject{
ArrayFind(2) Heading 3; ArrayReplace(2) \subsubsubject{
Note the closing } is missing. It is hardcoded in the replacement code.
2. Find the first array item starting from the top of the document.
This highlights the text in Word:
Find = $ArrayFind(n)
3. Put the highlighted text into a variable. Maybe you can even strip
the CR's from formatted pagagraphs:
stripCarriageReturns($FoundThisStuff) = CurrentSelection
4. Put the variable and the first replace item in the Word Replace
function. Note the hard coded closing bracket. And the CR assuming
you stripped the CR in step 3:
Replace = $ArrayReplace(n)+$FoundThisStuff+}+CR
5. Repeatedly use Replace and Find Next until nothing else is found.
Replace and Find Next
.
.
.
6. Repeatedly find the next array item to the end of the array.
n = n + 1
Find = $ArrayFind(n)
.
.
.
7. Save the file as text.
FilesSaveAs using the text option
Hum. After thinking about this and typing it in, maybe I should still
use the OLD method. It appears to be a little easier to manage. Maybe
a lot easier.
Oh well, not a real programmer.
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Re: [NTG-context] framed texts for boxing stuff
On Jan 9, 2006, at 5:01 PM, Hans Hagen wrote:
hm, i prefer to start from user demands and personal needs; we used
latex for a very short time and i don't remember mini pages -)
a minipage is a box, but i think it's in paragraph mode.
\begin{minipage}[position]{width}
text
\end{minipage}
Put two together
\begin{minipage}[t]{.30\linewidth}
text and images
\end{minipage}\hfill
%
\begin{minipage}[t]{.60\linewidth}
text and images
\end{minipage}
and you get two boxes horizontally across the page with the hfill
space between them
Put three together:
\begin{minipage}[t]{.30\linewidth}
text and images
\end{minipage}\hfill
%
\begin{minipage}[t]{.30\linewidth}
text and images
\end{minipage}\hfill
%
\begin{minipage}[t]{.30\linewidth}
text and images
\end{minipage}
and you get three boxes horizontally across the page with the hfill
space between them
Their vertical dimensions depend on the amount of content. They don't
cross page breaks.
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[NTG-context] PDF Forms
Hi, Is there some way to create PDF docs (as forms maybe?) so end users can add their own contact information and logos just by using Adobe Reader, not Acrobat? These are one to four page documents. Right now I can do this by supplying them with Word docs. Thanks. ___ ntg-context mailing list ntg-context@ntg.nl http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
Re: [NTG-context] ConTeXt and Aleph
On Aug 17, 2004, at 11:24 AM, Idris Samawi Hamid wrote: aleph aleph is the omega snip-off? for fun, lookup aleph on google. lots of alephs running around. ___ ntg-context mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
Re: [NTG-context] Re: ConTeXt Switcher?
Hi Christopher, On Dec 11, 2003, at 11:16 AM, Christopher G. D. Tipper wrote: Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 01:27:34 +0100 From: Giuseppe Bilotta [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re[2]: [NTG-context] ConTeXt Switcher? Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Not that I see the purpose of using Word in the frist place. Any decent editor has enough macro power to do the same. -- Giuseppe Oblomov Bilotta You missed the point. You markup and style your document using Word styles, and then XML is a matter of search and replace. I am not interested in Word per se, but I find using emacs to insert markup during document creation gets in the way of my thought processes. This way I can push markup worries to the editorial stage. People are fond of pointing out Words vices, and I wouldn't quibble with arguments about its stability, but it is about time OpenOffice and its ilk stopped resting on their laurels and started implementing some macro capability. I notice that AbiWord has a DocBook output format, but how well integrated this is I don't know. On Micro$oft's part if they had some real competition a real market in third-party templates might arrive. As it stands I have a 50% solution that handles footnotes and lists, but re-distribution is hampered by the way Word handles its templates and virus worries. Theoretically I could do tables and limited image markup using the same techniques. Leveraging the visual layout tools of a word-processor makes so much sense I wonder at the mentality of people still struggling with text-editors. I have emacs set up on my machine, but it really looks like back to the future from my point of view. I use WinEdt when I'm booted into Windows. btw you can use the same technique to generate native Context markup. It needs hand-editting, but as a rough draft, this works fine for me, and I don't have to re-invent the wheel every time I have a new document. You're point is well taken. I once wrote a complete Windows Help system generator using Word Basic macros and nothing else. If fed correctly structured documents, the macros would mark up all topics for display, page browsing, cross references, context sensitivity and indexes. It would then call the compiler. It took about 40 minutes to markup and compile a help system equivalent to 400 pages of text, graphics and all, on 1993-era Windows machines. The macros could also clean the files and start over if major changes were needed in the text. It was a freebie and efficient alternative to RoboHelp. I have just lost too much work to Word-corrupt files and Word-crashed systems to continue with MS. TeXShop (Mac OS X) has never crashed or hung in 15 months of use. The files have never become corrupt. I am looking at Nisus, or perhaps the OS X native TextEdit, as visual editors for the reasons you applaud Word. They both write rtf natively. I'm also looking at TeX4ht with ConTeXt. For now, TeXShop, LaTeX and TeX4ht are more flexible and stable than Word. We'll see. :) Take care. BK ___ ntg-context mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
Re: [NTG-context] context2html converter (was: ConTeXt Switcher? )
On Dec 9, 2003, at 6:52 AM, Maurice Diamantini wrote: A context2html solution is a big miss for ConTeXt tex4ht could be that solution. (if only a tex4ht power user would switch from LaTeX to ConTeXt :-) I have contacted a friend who is a tex4ht power user and asked if he could help with making tex4ht work with ConTeXt. He said his uneducated guess is that tex4ht can be made to work with ConTeXt, but he would need help installing ConTeXt on his Sun Solaris account. He does not have root access. The help would consistent of: Where to put things, setting up configuration files if such are needed, and similar issues that a user like me with no root access might encounter to get the system to run. In short, someone who can lead me in small steps through the installation process. Do such instructions already exist? Or, if someone can provide that type of help, please contact me offlist and I'll put y'all together. ___ ntg-context mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
Re: [NTG-context] ConTeXt Switcher?
On Dec 9, 2003, at 5:39 PM, Christopher G D Tipper wrote: On Dec 8, 2003, at 2:33 PM, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote: Am Montag, 08.12.03, um 18:20 Uhr (Europe/Zurich) schrieb Bob Kerstetter: ConTeXt is very attractive because of its detailed control, layers, colors, few or no packages(!), magical developers, and on and on. It can obvious produce PDF. Can it also produce HTML and Word from the same document? The normal way to get both PDF and HTML is using a XML source. You know of ConTeXts native XML mode? AFAIK you can import XML or HTML into MS Office, too, so you need no real Word DOC output. Or perhaps there's an other XML to RTF/DOC Konverter... I know XML source should work, but at least for me, creating XML source is unproductive. I work with a text editor and find writing this: ``Hello world,'' says HAL. much more productive than writing this: p#8220;Hello world#8221;/p, says HAL. Maybe I'm missing something, but for writing, XML's markup requirements -- which are invisible to field-based data entry screen -- are way too intense for hand-editing. TeX source is much less verbose. It is easier to create, proof (both visually and audibly), spell check troubleshoot, etc. I have not seen an editor capable of doing XML source in a productive manner, like (La)TeX with text editor. This is probably taboo, but surely the smart thing to do is start from Word, generate some XML with macros, and produce some HTML with stylesheets, some PDF with ConTeXt. BTW you can generate some simple Context with VB macros and hand-edit -- saves a whole load of mundane stuff. I can go from a web page to PDF in under 15 minutes using the Word macros I have for Context. Thanks for the suggestion. I don't really have a problem with Word for writing letters and the like. For large docs, however, it's just too unpredictable. Images move around. Numbered lists break. Cross references change. Formatting blows up if you even look at an end-paragraph mark (where all the paragraph info is stored). Styles revert to their defaults. Word crashes, often. My main source documents would be in a proprietary file format known for its tendencies toward corruption. I used Word for 15 years and it's just too much pain. My schedules are too tight to trust it. But least I sound like an MS basher, Word TOCs and Tables are excellent. Mail merge to email using MAPI it cool. And I did once write a complete Windows help system generator using only Word Basic. This was before VBA, before you had to be an OO programmer to write Word macros. :) These days I keep Word for Windows safety contained in a Mac OS X Remote Desktop Connection window. ;-) ___ ntg-context mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
Re: [NTG-context] ConTeXt Switcher?
On Dec 8, 2003, at 12:55 PM, Peter Münster wrote: On Mon, 8 Dec 2003, Bob Kerstetter wrote: It can obvious produce PDF. Can it also produce HTML and Word from the same document? Hello, I like TeX4ht for LaTeX. It would be great, if TeX4ht and ConTeXt work together. It seems, that it works well with plain-TeX, so why not with ConTeXt? TeX4ht is excellent. It's what I use for LaTeX to HTML and Word (via HTML convertion). It would require writing a custom configuration file to make it work with ConTeXt. I could be done, I just don't know how to do it. I have tried repeated to understand TeX4ht's conversion, but have never succeeded. ___ ntg-context mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
Re: [NTG-context] ConTeXt Switcher?
On Dec 8, 2003, at 2:33 PM, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote: Am Montag, 08.12.03, um 18:20 Uhr (Europe/Zurich) schrieb Bob Kerstetter: ConTeXt is very attractive because of its detailed control, layers, colors, few or no packages(!), magical developers, and on and on. It can obvious produce PDF. Can it also produce HTML and Word from the same document? The normal way to get both PDF and HTML is using a XML source. You know of ConTeXts native XML mode? AFAIK you can import XML or HTML into MS Office, too, so you need no real Word DOC output. Or perhaps there's an other XML to RTF/DOC Konverter... I know XML source should work, but at least for me, creating XML source is unproductive. I work with a text editor and find writing this: ``Hello world,'' says HAL. much more productive than writing this: p#8220;Hello world#8221;/p, says HAL. Maybe I'm missing something, but for writing, XML's markup requirements -- which are invisible to field-based data entry screen -- are way too intense for hand-editing. TeX source is much less verbose. It is easier to create, proof (both visually and audibly), spell check troubleshoot, etc. I have not seen an editor capable of doing XML source in a productive manner, like (La)TeX with text editor. OmniOutliner for OS X is close to being close, but too far from the goal to use. Is there some special thing I don't know? ??? Thanks. Bob Kerstetter http://homepage.mac.com/bkerstetter/ ___ ntg-context mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
Re: [NTG-context] `Standard' vs `Beta'?
Thanks, Hans. On Nov 27, 2003, at 3:26 AM, Hans Hagen wrote: At 03:14 27/11/2003, you wrote: what is the difference between the distributed and the beta versions of context? How current is my version? Does it have all of the cool stuff for doing column sets? in most cases recent versions of distributions have the latest context, however, you can download the version from our site, put it in your texmf local tree, run mktexlsr and texexec --make --alone and it should work; i'm working on a tree on our server so that one can rsync columnsets are available in older versions, but not always with all tricks type this in the terminal context -version prints this on the screen: pdfeTeX (Web2C 7.5.2) 3.141592-1.11a-2.1 kpathsea version 3.5.2 Copyright (C) 1997-2003 The NTS Team (eTeX)/Han The Thanh (pdfTeX). Kpathsea is copyright (C) 1997-2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc. There is NO warranty. Redistribution of this software is covered by the terms of both the pdfeTeX copyright and the GNU General Public License. For more information about these matters, see the files named COPYING and the pdfeTeX source. Primary author of pdfeTeX: The NTS Team (eTeX)/Han The Thanh (pdfTeX). Kpathsea written by Karl Berry and others. there is a new pdfetex on the tex live dvd/cd, but for the moment 1.11a is pl Hans ___ ntg-context mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context ___ ntg-context mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
