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#1
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ASCII conversion question
How do you convert a document to ascii or text so that page numbers appear
not in a header but exactly as they appear in the original doc, at the top of the page (or wherever)? I've tried Enriched Text, Text only, ANSI, etc. already, and everything puts pages into headers, or they drop the number entirely. |
#2
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The question doesn't quite make sense. ASCII is a character encoding scheme;
text is a file format. "puts pages into headers" doesn't ring any bells either. What do actually need to end up with? A text file (*.txt) formatted into pages, with page numbers? "scorber" wrote in message ... How do you convert a document to ascii or text so that page numbers appear not in a header but exactly as they appear in the original doc, at the top of the page (or wherever)? I've tried Enriched Text, Text only, ANSI, etc. already, and everything puts pages into headers, or they drop the number entirely. |
#3
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There is no text format that can incorporate page numbers from headers in
the document text. -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. "scorber" wrote in message ... How do you convert a document to ascii or text so that page numbers appear not in a header but exactly as they appear in the original doc, at the top of the page (or wherever)? I've tried Enriched Text, Text only, ANSI, etc. already, and everything puts pages into headers, or they drop the number entirely. |
#4
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It looks like you can get this effect by printing to the Generic/Text
Only printer driver (which you may have to install first) and selecting Print To File. You'll get a .prn file, which is usually a "copy to printer" binary, but from the Generic driver you get a text file. The headers and footers are printed in the right places but as plain text. That said, it seems to mess up the formatting about every 15 or 20 lines and doesn't handle tables well at all. You'd have a lot of cleanup to do to make the file presentable. -- Regards, Jay Freedman Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org On Sat, 15 Jan 2005 18:48:03 -0600, "Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote: There is no text format that can incorporate page numbers from headers in the document text. -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. "scorber" wrote in message ... How do you convert a document to ascii or text so that page numbers appear not in a header but exactly as they appear in the original doc, at the top of the page (or wherever)? I've tried Enriched Text, Text only, ANSI, etc. already, and everything puts pages into headers, or they drop the number entirely. |
#5
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That said, it seems to mess up the formatting about every 15 or 20 lines and doesn't handle tables well at all. You'd have a lot of cleanup to do to make the file presentable. You'd also need a pretty arcane requirement to want it in the first place. |
#6
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Agreed, but thanks, Jay, for the information. The only time I've tried this
"Generic/Text Only"/"Print to file" combination was for "printing" AutoText entries, and that turned out to be entirely unsatisfactory (to me as well as to the user). -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. "Jezebel" wrote in message ... That said, it seems to mess up the formatting about every 15 or 20 lines and doesn't handle tables well at all. You'd have a lot of cleanup to do to make the file presentable. You'd also need a pretty arcane requirement to want it in the first place. |
#7
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This is for someone who wants an exact duplicate of his document. He doesn't
want an ASCII that allows shifting page numbers but a kind of photocopy of exactly how each page looked after input -- why i don't know. This question comes up time to time, especially when involving legal docs. "Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote: Agreed, but thanks, Jay, for the information. The only time I've tried this "Generic/Text Only"/"Print to file" combination was for "printing" AutoText entries, and that turned out to be entirely unsatisfactory (to me as well as to the user). -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. "Jezebel" wrote in message ... That said, it seems to mess up the formatting about every 15 or 20 lines and doesn't handle tables well at all. You'd have a lot of cleanup to do to make the file presentable. You'd also need a pretty arcane requirement to want it in the first place. |
#8
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This is for someone who wants an exact duplicate of his document. He doesn't want an ASCII that allows shifting page numbers but a kind of photocopy of exactly how each page looked after input -- why i don't know. This question comes up time to time, especially when involving legal docs. Still doesn't explain the reference to 'text' in the question. What's wrong with a plain Word document that follows the format of the original? There's no such thing as "an ASCII". It's like asking for a document that's "an English". |
#9
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This is what pdf is designed for, isn't it?
On 1/16/05 10:23 AM, "scorber" wrote: a kind of photocopy of exactly how each page looked after input |
#10
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By ascii i mean ascii file, and the question is, is it possible to create a
text file so that the page numbers are text, not part of a header. It is for a legal document. Maybe they want an exact copy of the original that is transferable between widely different systems, like pc's and unix's. I don't know. But that's not the question. The question is how can it be done in Word, if at all.. "Jezebel" wrote: This is for someone who wants an exact duplicate of his document. He doesn't want an ASCII that allows shifting page numbers but a kind of photocopy of exactly how each page looked after input -- why i don't know. This question comes up time to time, especially when involving legal docs. Still doesn't explain the reference to 'text' in the question. What's wrong with a plain Word document that follows the format of the original? There's no such thing as "an ASCII". It's like asking for a document that's "an English". |
#11
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Jay has told you how it can be done, but I'm with Daiya: I think a PDF would
be a much better solution. -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. "scorber" wrote in message ... By ascii i mean ascii file, and the question is, is it possible to create a text file so that the page numbers are text, not part of a header. It is for a legal document. Maybe they want an exact copy of the original that is transferable between widely different systems, like pc's and unix's. I don't know. But that's not the question. The question is how can it be done in Word, if at all.. "Jezebel" wrote: This is for someone who wants an exact duplicate of his document. He doesn't want an ASCII that allows shifting page numbers but a kind of photocopy of exactly how each page looked after input -- why i don't know. This question comes up time to time, especially when involving legal docs. Still doesn't explain the reference to 'text' in the question. What's wrong with a plain Word document that follows the format of the original? There's no such thing as "an ASCII". It's like asking for a document that's "an English". |
#12
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It's still the case that your 'question' is more one of terminology rather
than method. A text file with the page numbers as part of the text rather than the header will be useless on any system. "scorber" wrote in message ... By ascii i mean ascii file, and the question is, is it possible to create a text file so that the page numbers are text, not part of a header. It is for a legal document. Maybe they want an exact copy of the original that is transferable between widely different systems, like pc's and unix's. I don't know. But that's not the question. The question is how can it be done in Word, if at all.. "Jezebel" wrote: This is for someone who wants an exact duplicate of his document. He doesn't want an ASCII that allows shifting page numbers but a kind of photocopy of exactly how each page looked after input -- why i don't know. This question comes up time to time, especially when involving legal docs. Still doesn't explain the reference to 'text' in the question. What's wrong with a plain Word document that follows the format of the original? There's no such thing as "an ASCII". It's like asking for a document that's "an English". |
#13
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The Word question was: how do you make page numbers appear as text in a
text-only document. That's it...am not seeking other programs, other solutions. Thank you. "Daiya Mitchell" wrote: This is what pdf is designed for, isn't it? On 1/16/05 10:23 AM, "scorber" wrote: a kind of photocopy of exactly how each page looked after input |
#14
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You'll have to enter them as text.
-- Please respond to the Newsgroup for the benefit of others who may be interested. Questions sent directly to me will only be answered on a paid consulting basis. Hope this helps, Doug Robbins - Word MVP "scorber" wrote in message ... The Word question was: how do you make page numbers appear as text in a text-only document. That's it...am not seeking other programs, other solutions. Thank you. "Daiya Mitchell" wrote: This is what pdf is designed for, isn't it? On 1/16/05 10:23 AM, "scorber" wrote: a kind of photocopy of exactly how each page looked after input |
#15
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The problem is that Word is not a page layout program. The concept of pages
in Word is purely transient based upon text flow, which among other things is affected by the current printer driver, thus a Word document's 'pages' will be variable according to the platform it is viewed upon. The answers have already been covered in the thread, with the output to a generic text printer driver or manually typing the page numbers being the most obvious, while using Word for the task; but for a legal document where inappropriate editing may be a problem, PDF is a better plan or you could output to a multi-page graphics format such as TIFF, which would be even more inconvenient for an unauthorised user to edit. SnagIt can do this. -- Graham Mayor - Word MVP My web site www.gmayor.com Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org scorber wrote: The Word question was: how do you make page numbers appear as text in a text-only document. That's it...am not seeking other programs, other solutions. Thank you. "Daiya Mitchell" wrote: This is what pdf is designed for, isn't it? On 1/16/05 10:23 AM, "scorber" wrote: a kind of photocopy of exactly how each page looked after input |
#16
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Thank you all for the superb articulate answers ... will be very helpful in
future... "Graham Mayor" wrote: The problem is that Word is not a page layout program. The concept of pages in Word is purely transient based upon text flow, which among other things is affected by the current printer driver, thus a Word document's 'pages' will be variable according to the platform it is viewed upon. The answers have already been covered in the thread, with the output to a generic text printer driver or manually typing the page numbers being the most obvious, while using Word for the task; but for a legal document where inappropriate editing may be a problem, PDF is a better plan or you could output to a multi-page graphics format such as TIFF, which would be even more inconvenient for an unauthorised user to edit. SnagIt can do this. -- Graham Mayor - Word MVP My web site www.gmayor.com Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org scorber wrote: The Word question was: how do you make page numbers appear as text in a text-only document. That's it...am not seeking other programs, other solutions. Thank you. "Daiya Mitchell" wrote: This is what pdf is designed for, isn't it? On 1/16/05 10:23 AM, "scorber" wrote: a kind of photocopy of exactly how each page looked after input |
#17
Posted to microsoft.public.word.docmanagement
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ASCII conversion question
It isn't really all that arcane. For many, many years in the legal
community, court reporters have provided attorney firms with "print image" AKA "page image" ASCII files. That's because WordPerfect (including the old DOS versions) could make an ASCII file that looked pretty much identical to the printed page, including page numbers, line numbers, headers, footers, etc. Many attorney firms have specialized software that works with those files. PDFs won't completely fill the gap because many attorneys' systems are geared for ASCII. Also, the search engine used in Acrobat Reader won't do Boolean and other advanced searching which is essential for many attorneys. So yes, there really is a large group of people out there interested in this. They are sometimes confused thinking that ASCII is a "format" instead of an encryption standard, but they DO know what they want -- an ASCII file that when viewed looks like a transcript with at least page and line numbers and page breaks. Now that Word is dominating the word processing field, it's causing a great deal of agony to court reporting firms (and their attorney customers) because, for some reason, MS doesn't seem to regard it as necessary to have the ability to generate an ASCII file that resembles the printed page. They, too, seem to think it "arcane", but I assure you, it's not arcane in the legal community, which is a pretty good sized group. I've been looking and have found only ONE app that claims that it can extract an ASCII file intact from Word, but I tested it and it doesn't work correctly. Oddly enough, although Word will preserve line breaks, it will NOT preserve page breaks? What was MS thinking??? It surely should be an option and it wouldn't be hard to put hard page break codes in the file. The best workaround is to use "plain text" and tell it to preserve line breaks. Then you have to use some sort of program to put back the page breaks. Then you use special court reporting software to "fake" the line numbers that got dropped out. It's a pain. Want to make some serious money writing software? Write a killer app for court reporters that will take a Word file and pull out a "print image ASCII" file from it. If it works right, I suspect you will sell a fair number of copies to the many thousands of court reporting firms in the country. I myself know of a couple of buyers who would pay several hundred dollars for such an app. "Jezebel" wrote: That said, it seems to mess up the formatting about every 15 or 20 lines and doesn't handle tables well at all. You'd have a lot of cleanup to do to make the file presentable. You'd also need a pretty arcane requirement to want it in the first place. |
#18
Posted to microsoft.public.word.docmanagement
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ASCII conversion question
Two observations
1. Given the amount of money washing around in the legal profession it is time they joined the 21st century and bought some software that did the job, instead of this antediluvian cock-up. Arcane is certainly one word to describe it. 2. Any application that can print can produce such a page image format by adding the Windows generic text printer driver and outputting to file. Furthermore there was an ASCII (with layout) filter available for earlier Word Versions that will still work (with security warnings) with recent versions. That converter is linked from my web site http://www.gmayor.com/downloads.htm and *may* do what you want. If it does I will happily take your hundreds of dollars -- Graham Mayor - Word MVP My web site www.gmayor.com Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org mike1005 wrote: It isn't really all that arcane. For many, many years in the legal community, court reporters have provided attorney firms with "print image" AKA "page image" ASCII files. That's because WordPerfect (including the old DOS versions) could make an ASCII file that looked pretty much identical to the printed page, including page numbers, line numbers, headers, footers, etc. Many attorney firms have specialized software that works with those files. PDFs won't completely fill the gap because many attorneys' systems are geared for ASCII. Also, the search engine used in Acrobat Reader won't do Boolean and other advanced searching which is essential for many attorneys. So yes, there really is a large group of people out there interested in this. They are sometimes confused thinking that ASCII is a "format" instead of an encryption standard, but they DO know what they want -- an ASCII file that when viewed looks like a transcript with at least page and line numbers and page breaks. Now that Word is dominating the word processing field, it's causing a great deal of agony to court reporting firms (and their attorney customers) because, for some reason, MS doesn't seem to regard it as necessary to have the ability to generate an ASCII file that resembles the printed page. They, too, seem to think it "arcane", but I assure you, it's not arcane in the legal community, which is a pretty good sized group. I've been looking and have found only ONE app that claims that it can extract an ASCII file intact from Word, but I tested it and it doesn't work correctly. Oddly enough, although Word will preserve line breaks, it will NOT preserve page breaks? What was MS thinking??? It surely should be an option and it wouldn't be hard to put hard page break codes in the file. The best workaround is to use "plain text" and tell it to preserve line breaks. Then you have to use some sort of program to put back the page breaks. Then you use special court reporting software to "fake" the line numbers that got dropped out. It's a pain. Want to make some serious money writing software? Write a killer app for court reporters that will take a Word file and pull out a "print image ASCII" file from it. If it works right, I suspect you will sell a fair number of copies to the many thousands of court reporting firms in the country. I myself know of a couple of buyers who would pay several hundred dollars for such an app. "Jezebel" wrote: That said, it seems to mess up the formatting about every 15 or 20 lines and doesn't handle tables well at all. You'd have a lot of cleanup to do to make the file presentable. You'd also need a pretty arcane requirement to want it in the first place. |
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