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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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".

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

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".

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".

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".

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

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

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

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

[mike1005]

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.

[Graham Mayor]

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.