.DOC to Flat ASCII File Conversion

[Al]

I have a simple .DOCfile that I want to convert to a flat ACII text file. During the conversion, I want to be able to keep the general formatting:

A page width of 80 characters or less, no page breaks, and simple indentation (4 character indent).
No special fonts or characters either. In fact, the .DOC file character set I am using is Courier New, 12 pt.

Al

 

[Opinicus]

I have a simple .DOCfile that I want to convert to a flat ACII text
file. During the conversion, I want to be able to keep the general
formatting:
A page width of 80 characters or less, no page breaks, and simple
indentation (4 character indent). No special fonts or characters
either. In fact, the .DOC file character set I am using is Courier
New, 12 pt.

The simplest way would be to copy the file (Control-C) and then paste it
into another file without formatting but that wouldn't preserve your line
width or indentation. I was going to say "I don't think you can do this" but
you might try experimenting with the "Print to file" option in the Print
menu. I think you can accomplish what you're trying to do there. In fact, I
think I've done it once or twice before.

 

[Gary Smith]

I have a simple .DOCfile that I want to convert to a flat ACII text file. During the conversion, I want to be able to keep the general formatting:

A page width of 80 characters or less, no page breaks, and simple indentation (4 character indent).
No special fonts or characters either. In fact, the .DOC file character set I am using is Courier New, 12 pt.

Have you tried File > Save As, and select "Text Only" or "Text Only with
Line Breaks " in the "Save as type" box?

 

[Al]

Print to File -- An idea I didn't think of so I tried it. All I get is a file with tons of control information

Al

 

[Al]

Yes. Using any of the Save AS file types drops the formatting. It does produce a "text" file that NotePAd, CodeWright, etc. can deal with, but I would have to manually reformat the file

Sigh
Al

 

[Beth Melton]

Hi Al,

A text file is just a text file. It does not store any type of
formatting - it stores text only.

If I follow what you want to accomplish, you want a text file that
maintains indents? If that is the case then you might try using the
"Text with Layout (*.ans)" file type.

If that isn't what you are looking for then perhaps you can expand on
how you want to utilize the file and we may be able to suggest some
alternatives.

--
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

Yes. Using any of the Save AS file types drops the formatting. It

does produce a "text" file that NotePAd, CodeWright, etc. can deal
with, but I would have to manually reformat the file.

 

[Al]

Beth

Thank you. Exactly what I wanted

By-the-way, what I wanted was an ASCII text file that would contain the text indented, where appropriate, by four columns, eight, etc. while maintaining line spacing. This file will be used in a line-based help mode displayed to simple viewers

So the indentation of the doc file needed to be conserved. It appears as this is the case with ans-type

Thanks
Al

 

[Beth Melton]

Ah! That makes sense now. Glad you found a format that will work for
your needs.

--
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

Beth,

Thank you. Exactly what I wanted.

By-the-way, what I wanted was an ASCII text file that would contain

the text indented, where appropriate, by four columns, eight, etc.
while maintaining line spacing. This file will be used in a line-based
help mode displayed to simple viewers.

So the indentation of the doc file needed to be conserved. It

appears as this is the case with ans-type.