Converting from page-layout program to Word

I'm using Microsoft Office Word 2003.

I have a document that was formatted for some ancient page-layout program
that won't even run under Windows XP, so I'd like to put it all into Word.
It's currently in a tag-style format; for example, to italicize some section,
it needs surrounding tags, like this:

W0IPassage to be italicized.D

The document is huge, so I need to use Replace all to turn all of these into
italics in Word. Is there a way to turn such passages, wherever they occur,
into italicized text in Word, dropping the tags on either side?

(I thought of trying to convert the document to HTML format, but there is a
killer problem: Every formatting, whether bold, italics, or a change of
font, ends with the very same tag, D. But HTML wants italics to end with a
/em, bold to end with /strong, and a font to end with /font, matching
the opening tag. I don't see how I can do that automatically.)

Perhaps I could use a macro; it would have to "turn on italics" when it saw
the W0I and "turn off italics" when it saw D; again, I can't figure out
how to do that from the Word help system.

Help! This is a ginormous document, about 200,000 words. I would go nuts
trying to do this all manually. Alternatively, if someone can suggest a good
Word book that would explain to a dope like me how to do that, I would be
very appreciative.

Thanks,

Dafydd

What was the old application?

Fort the particular quoted example, you could use a wildcard replace of
\W0I\(*)\D\
with
\1
Click CTRL+I while the cursor is in the replace box to format the
replacement string as italic.

HOWEVER

While this will work for simple text strings, the wildcard character * is a
rather blunt instrument and has the potential to get confused e.g. if some
sections are both bold and italic. It would need a larger example of text to
come up with a more definitive solution, given that the end markers are all
the same. You would need to page through the document clicking the next
button in the replace dialog to ensure that only the required texts were
addressed.

http://www.gmayor.com/replace_using_wildcards.htm covers the process.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org



Dafydd ab Hugh wrote:
I'm using Microsoft Office Word 2003.

I have a document that was formatted for some ancient page-layout
program that won't even run under Windows XP, so I'd like to put it
all into Word. It's currently in a tag-style format; for example, to
italicize some section, it needs surrounding tags, like this:

W0IPassage to be italicized.D

The document is huge, so I need to use Replace all to turn all of
these into italics in Word. Is there a way to turn such passages,
wherever they occur, into italicized text in Word, dropping the tags
on either side?

(I thought of trying to convert the document to HTML format, but
there is a killer problem: Every formatting, whether bold, italics,
or a change of font, ends with the very same tag, D. But HTML
wants italics to end with a /em, bold to end with /strong, and a
font to end with /font, matching the opening tag. I don't see how
I can do that automatically.)

Perhaps I could use a macro; it would have to "turn on italics" when
it saw the W0I and "turn off italics" when it saw D; again, I
can't figure out how to do that from the Word help system.

Help! This is a ginormous document, about 200,000 words. I would go
nuts trying to do this all manually. Alternatively, if someone can
suggest a good Word book that would explain to a dope like me how to
do that, I would be very appreciative.

Thanks,

Dafydd

My guess would be XyWrite, which was popular with publishers at one time,
but it's been a very long time since I (briefly) used it.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

"Graham Mayor" wrote in message
...
What was the old application?

Fort the particular quoted example, you could use a wildcard replace of
\W0I\(*)\D\
with
\1
Click CTRL+I while the cursor is in the replace box to format the
replacement string as italic.

HOWEVER

While this will work for simple text strings, the wildcard character * is
a rather blunt instrument and has the potential to get confused e.g. if
some sections are both bold and italic. It would need a larger example of
text to come up with a more definitive solution, given that the end
markers are all the same. You would need to page through the document
clicking the next button in the replace dialog to ensure that only the
required texts were addressed.

http://www.gmayor.com/replace_using_wildcards.htm covers the process.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org



Dafydd ab Hugh wrote:
I'm using Microsoft Office Word 2003.

I have a document that was formatted for some ancient page-layout
program that won't even run under Windows XP, so I'd like to put it
all into Word. It's currently in a tag-style format; for example, to
italicize some section, it needs surrounding tags, like this:

W0IPassage to be italicized.D

The document is huge, so I need to use Replace all to turn all of
these into italics in Word. Is there a way to turn such passages,
wherever they occur, into italicized text in Word, dropping the tags
on either side?

(I thought of trying to convert the document to HTML format, but
there is a killer problem: Every formatting, whether bold, italics,
or a change of font, ends with the very same tag, D. But HTML
wants italics to end with a /em, bold to end with /strong, and a
font to end with /font, matching the opening tag. I don't see how
I can do that automatically.)

Perhaps I could use a macro; it would have to "turn on italics" when
it saw the W0I and "turn off italics" when it saw D; again, I
can't figure out how to do that from the Word help system.

Help! This is a ginormous document, about 200,000 words. I would go
nuts trying to do this all manually. Alternatively, if someone can
suggest a good Word book that would explain to a dope like me how to
do that, I would be very appreciative.

Thanks,

Dafydd

If it is XyWrite there are converters available.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org



Suzanne S. Barnhill wrote:
My guess would be XyWrite, which was popular with publishers at one
time, but it's been a very long time since I (briefly) used it.


"Graham Mayor" wrote in message
...
What was the old application?

Fort the particular quoted example, you could use a wildcard replace
of \W0I\(*)\D\
with
\1
Click CTRL+I while the cursor is in the replace box to format the
replacement string as italic.

HOWEVER

While this will work for simple text strings, the wildcard character
* is a rather blunt instrument and has the potential to get confused
e.g. if some sections are both bold and italic. It would need a
larger example of text to come up with a more definitive solution,
given that the end markers are all the same. You would need to page
through the document clicking the next button in the replace dialog
to ensure that only the required texts were addressed.

http://www.gmayor.com/replace_using_wildcards.htm covers the
process. --

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org



Dafydd ab Hugh wrote:
I'm using Microsoft Office Word 2003.

I have a document that was formatted for some ancient page-layout
program that won't even run under Windows XP, so I'd like to put it
all into Word. It's currently in a tag-style format; for example, to
italicize some section, it needs surrounding tags, like this:

W0IPassage to be italicized.D

The document is huge, so I need to use Replace all to turn all of
these into italics in Word. Is there a way to turn such passages,
wherever they occur, into italicized text in Word, dropping the tags
on either side?

(I thought of trying to convert the document to HTML format, but
there is a killer problem: Every formatting, whether bold, italics,
or a change of font, ends with the very same tag, D. But HTML
wants italics to end with a /em, bold to end with /strong, and a
font to end with /font, matching the opening tag. I don't see how
I can do that automatically.)

Perhaps I could use a macro; it would have to "turn on italics" when
it saw the W0I and "turn off italics" when it saw D; again, I
can't figure out how to do that from the Word help system.

Help! This is a ginormous document, about 200,000 words. I would
go nuts trying to do this all manually. Alternatively, if someone
can suggest a good Word book that would explain to a dope like me
how to do that, I would be very appreciative.

Thanks,

Dafydd

Thanks, Graham;

Alas, I don't know what software generated that file; I don't have the
program, just the file! I've been editing by typing in the codes -- e.g., to
put passages in W0IitalicsD.

If it is XyWrite, I think it's from the pre-Cambrian era. It might make
sense for me to buy a (slightly) old, used version of something like
PageMaker or Ventura Publisher (is that still used?), since I will eventually
have to lay this out myself... but it might not be able to convert such an
old version of XyWrite to its own, more modern format. If I could transform
the (possibly) Ancient-XyWrite format into Word 2003, I hope that the page
layout program can convert from that format to whatever it needs.

I'll try your wild-card replace and see if that works. Thanks again!

"Graham Mayor" wrote:

If it is XyWrite there are converters available.

If it is XyWrite - the FileMerlin should convert it to Word.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org



Dafydd ab Hugh wrote:
Thanks, Graham;

Alas, I don't know what software generated that file; I don't have the
program, just the file! I've been editing by typing in the codes --
e.g., to put passages in W0IitalicsD.

If it is XyWrite, I think it's from the pre-Cambrian era. It might
make sense for me to buy a (slightly) old, used version of something
like PageMaker or Ventura Publisher (is that still used?), since I
will eventually have to lay this out myself... but it might not be
able to convert such an old version of XyWrite to its own, more
modern format. If I could transform the (possibly) Ancient-XyWrite
format into Word 2003, I hope that the page layout program can
convert from that format to whatever it needs.

I'll try your wild-card replace and see if that works. Thanks again!

"Graham Mayor" wrote:

If it is XyWrite there are converters available.