Converting from page-layout program to Word

[Dafydd ab Hugh]

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:

<W0I>Passage 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

 

[Graham Mayor]

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.

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

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]

If it is XyWrite there are converters available.

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[Dafydd ab Hugh]

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 <W0I>italics<D>.

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]

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

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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