Convert many files

[talaivan]

I have about 1000 files in Nisus classic and would like to convert them to Nisus Writer Pro. NWP does a wonderful job of reading them, but the only way I can see to convert them is to do it 1 by 1, manually adding the title. Maclinkplus is useless, as it does not transfer the font info properly. Is there any way to get NWP to convert many files? I suppose a macro might do it. Any suggestions? Thanks!

[MacSailor]

Maybe the convertion could/should/would be able to work just like Mellel do when it went from their old format to their new format based on XML? When you open a document created in the older file format, Mellel ask you if you want to convert the file or just save a copy of it in the new file format.



This may not help you to convert thousands of files in one strike though, but it's a good starter.

[Derick]

This isn't really an answer to your question, but a counter-question based on my experience. I have several thousand files in WordPerfect for dos/windows, dating from 1985 to 2006, & I looked into various options for batch converting them, but I've realized that 98% of the time, I just need to view the content of the file, or copy and paste something out of it. If the file is really something I'm going to be actively working on, I'll enter the title and save it, but most of the time, opening it in NWP is all I need.

Obviously the answer to the Q. will depend on the content of the files you have & the way you use them....I ended up deciding that it was less troublesome to save the occasional file when I *really* needed it than to worry about how to batch-convert them all when I didn't really need most of them in rtf format.

[talaivan]

It struck me that I could write a macro Nisus Classic 6.5 to save files in RTF format, but unfortunately when I try to do that, I get the message "Couldn't load XTND." Does anyone know whether XTND will work in OS 9.2 running in OSX emulation? I have also written to Nisus support for help -- I seem to have lost my original disks, so I can't try the version of XTND that came with 6.5. Would this work?

[Hamid]

You can batch convert Nisus Writer Classic files with Nobumi's 'conv_NW2NWE.app' droplet. All you need to do is drag-and-drop on to 'conv_NW2NWE.app' droplet as many Classic files as you want to convert. The download link is at the bottom of this web page:

http://www.bekkoame.ne.jp/~n-iyanag/res ... tonwe.html

Converted files bearing the same file names as the original Classic files will be created in the same folder as the original files which will remain untouched.
It is recommended that you have the fonts used in your Classic files available in one of the fonts folder on your Mac.

[Hamid]

I get the message "Couldn't load XTND."

Quit Classic if it is running. Then from System Folder/Preferences folder, trash 'File Exchange Preferences' and 'XTND Translator List'. These two files will be regenerated and updated when you next launch Nisus Writer Classic. This will allow XTND translators to load properly.

[talaivan]

Thanks for the help, Hamid. Nobumi's droplet works very well (it sometimes chokes on many files NWP, but works perfectly with Express). The only thing that would make it more useful would be if it preserved the dates of the original files. NWP does a wonderful job of translating old Nisus files -- so far, I have not run into any problems.

[igroucho]

I have loads of Nisus files saved from a mac belonging once to my passed away father. All dating back as early as 91-92. I'd like from various reasons, among all pc-comp, to convert them to MsWord files. When I open a file in Nisus it's opened as "Untitled" but I'd like NW to retain the filename (naturally!) proceeding to "Save as" (in MsW). (Why on earth does NWE open a file as "Untitled" in the 1st place???).
I'm sure this can be accomplished in Automator or Apple Script but can it be done in NWE alone?

[Nobumi Iyanaga]

Hello igroucho,

I have loads of Nisus files saved from a mac belonging once to my passed away father. All dating back as early as 91-92. I'd like from various reasons, among all pc-comp, to convert them to MsWord files. When I open a file in Nisus it's opened as "Untitled" but I'd like NW to retain the filename (naturally!) proceeding to "Save as" (in MsW). (Why on earth does NWE open a file as "Untitled" in the 1st place???).
I'm sure this can be accomplished in Automator or Apple Script but can it be done in NWE alone?

I think this can be done rather easily, modifying some lines of my AppleScript droplet -- you can save your untitled file as a ".doc" file in NWP, and this can be automated with AppleScript. In fact, as far as I know, the resulting file is no different from the rtf file; it is only the extension which is different. If the original files have complicated formatting, etc., then, the result in MS Word may not be very good, but if they have only simple formatting, then, that there should be no big problems.

Write me off-list at <n>, and I will send you a droplet that you might want to test...

If it works well, I might upload it to my web page.