Import WordPerfect lines

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vall4
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Location: New York, NY

Import WordPerfect lines

Post by vall4 »

Hi All,

I am in the long and drawn-out process of moving from a PC to the MAC. The main reason it has taken me so long is that I'm used to WordPerfect for Windows. But this, too, must pass. Of all the word procesors for Mac, NWE seems most appealing. Also, I like how it will import WP files (although I don't know why it changes the font from Times Roman to Helvetica). My question is: In WP, if you type "----" and press return, you get a line across the page. I use these as section breaks when writing. These lines are not coming in when I import my documents, either as the originals or when resaved as RTFs. So:

1. Is there any way to import these lines so that I don't have to reformat each of my docs in NWE?

2. How would I go about creating these lines (ideally, dotted lines) to create visible section breaks in NWE, aside from just hitting "-----" to go across the whole line? Does NWE have this feature, or a similar feature, and is there a shortcut to it?

Any help/advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Eli
cchapin
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Location: Nagoya, Japan

Re: Import WordPerfect lines

Post by cchapin »

vall4 wrote:I am in the long and drawn-out process of moving from a PC to the MAC. The main reason it has taken me so long is that I'm used to WordPerfect for Windows. But this, too, must pass. Of all the word procesors for Mac, NWE seems most appealing.
Hi, Eli. Sounds like we have some things in common.
vall4 wrote:2. How would I go about creating these lines (ideally, dotted lines) to create visible section breaks in NWE, aside from just hitting "-----" to go across the whole line? Does NWE have this feature, or a similar feature, and is there a shortcut to it?
I don't believe NWE has this feature at this point. I looked for it, too. I haven't found it any many word processors -- at least not as implemented by WordPerfect. For that matter, the Mac version of WordPerfect doesn't have it either. In WordPerfect for Mac, you have to add a border to a paragraph to get something like the same effect, but NWE doesn't do paragraph borders (at least not yet). Here are four possible ways to approximate a horizontal line in NWE, none perfect.

1. Use a table but turn on only one border. (You could possibly save this in a non-zero clipboard for repeat uses.)

2. Create a horizontal line in a drawing program and drop it into NWE as a graphic. (Again, you could save it in a non-zero clipboard for repeat uses.)

3. Use QuickFix (in Preferences) to have NWE automatically change ---- to a string of hyphens (or underscores or en-dashes) long enough to stretch from margin to margin. (Or make it a bit shorter and center it.)

4. Create a line of characters (hyphens, underscores, en-dashes) to suit your taste and copy it to a non-zero clipboard for use later. The only advantage to this method over the third is that it could save paragraph formatting as well in case you want the line to be a bit shorter and centered.
vall4 wrote:1. Is there any way to import these lines so that I don't have to reformat each of my docs in NWE?
The only thing I can suggest is to run a find and replace operation in WordPerfect to turn the horizontal line into something NWE can read, then run another find and replace operation in NWE to convert that to a string of hyphens, underscores or en-dashes.

I wish I could be of more help. I don't have a perfect solution.

--Craig
vall4
Posts: 8
Joined: 2004-10-24 12:06:18
Location: New York, NY

Post by vall4 »

Hi Craig,

Thanks for the helpful reply. Your third and fourth suggestions sound ideal for my needs, but I have a couple more questions:

1. I'm new to Nisus, and wasn't familiar with the QuickFix option. I just tried it -- turned "---" into a longer string -- and when I go back to the document and try it, it continues creating more long "-----" strings each time I press return, until I type text. Is that normal or a bug? Normally I would add a section break, hit return, then start the new section. But in NWE, if I use QuickFix, then hit a second return, I just get more "------". It seems odd.

2. Am I able to copy something to a non-zero clipboard that will be saved for use in all my documents, or will I have to save the string each time I start a new document?

As for your find/replace suggestion, at the risk of veering off-topic into WordPerfect help, do you know of a way to make WP find graphic lines? It doesn't seem to be one of the "Specific Code" types.

Thanks again for your suggestions and assistance.

Eli
fletcher
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Post by fletcher »

I tried Craig's Quickfix suggestion, using four hyphens '----' mapped to a row of underscores, and it worked fine. I don't know why yours would be repeating liked that. But Quickfix doesn't seem to let you apply character formatting or using a graphic as your "fix." I clicked back into Nisus 6 and the Glossary feature had that feature -- in fact I had a four hypens set to display a graphic line, just like Wordperfect. That's something they could impove on in the future.

As for your WP question, isn't there a code for "GraphLine" or something similar? I use this feature myself and am pretty sure there is a code for it. Just turn on Show Codes and place the cursor by one of your lines, you should be able to see the code. Then go to the Find/Replace box.
rmark
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Post by rmark »

Regarding vall4's quetsions.

A. The QuickFix seems to expand every time you enter a "word ending" character. That's why vall4 kept getting more dashes. fletcher (If I read his note correctly) did not get more dashes because his dashes "quickly fixed" to underscores.

B. Clipboards are available to any document in Nisus Writer Express until you quit the application. You can rename any of the clipboards you create (and you can create an unlimited number of them) to represent the usual contents you store on them. So, you could have a Clipboard you name LINE and keep on it a graphic line. You would, of course need to copy a line to it at the beginning of each Nisus Writer Express session.

I hope this helps.
Write On!
Mark Hurvitz
Nisus Software Inc.
cchapin
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Location: Nagoya, Japan

Post by cchapin »

Hello again, Eli. I was out of town for a few days, so I wasn't able to respond quickly. I think Fletcher and Mark dealt with your questions, but post again if questions remain. I'm hoping that Nisus Writer Express can develop into a workable WordPerfect replacement for you and me both.

--Craig
vall4
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Joined: 2004-10-24 12:06:18
Location: New York, NY

Post by vall4 »

Hi everybody,

Thank you very much for the help. A couple follow-ups:

Mark, I wasn't quite sure what you meant by "word ending" character. I tried the same with underscores and got another problem -- I couldn't even type more than three underscores without the line starting all over again from scratch. All I wanted to do was turn --- into -------------------------------------------- or ___ into __________________________________, but neither worked.

Re. clipboards -- If I'm not able to assign a graphic to a clipboard permanently, I wouldn't use that option, as it's too cumbersome to assign it each time I open a document. Perhaps a future version will allow this option?

Fletcher, In WP I'm able to identify the line in Reveal Codes -- it's "Graph Line Horz" -- but I can find no match-up in the Type-->Specific Codes option in the Find/Replace box.

Thanks again for the advice and assistance.

Take care,
Eli
cchapin
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Location: Nagoya, Japan

Post by cchapin »

Hi, Eli.

In WordPerfect try Edit > Find, then Match > Codes (instead of Type > Specific Codes). Select Graph Line. This will find all graphic lines, both horizontal and vertical, but if you haven't used any verticals in your documents, that shouldn't be a problem.

I imagine it would be possible to load the clipboards in Nisus Writer Express using an AppleScript macro. I'm a beginner at that but given time I bet I could figure something out.

I can reproduce the problem you described when I use QuickFix to convert four hyphens to a full line of hyphens, but it works fine with underscores or en-dashes.

--Craig
vall4
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Joined: 2004-10-24 12:06:18
Location: New York, NY

Post by vall4 »

Craig,

Thank you very much. I didn't realize there was another way to search for graphic codes in WP. That works, so I should be able to find/replace in my WP documents.

As for hyphens versus en-dashes, I'm not sure I understand the difference within QuickFix. I'm just typing the character "-" or "_" three times, and trying to get it to turn that into the same character, say, 50 times, and it doesn't seem to work. Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks,
Eli
cchapin
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Post by cchapin »

I don't fully understand why NWE handles the hyphens the way it does, but Mark (who should know) seemed to indicate that it has something to do with their being word-ending characters. To avoid the problem, I think it would be best to stick to underscores (which are on the keyboard) or en-dashes.

To get an en-dash, click the Edit menu, then Special Characters. (On some systems, this is found under the flag icon on the menu bar.) In the list on the left of the system Character Palette, click "Punctuation." There are several hyphen/dash characters to choose from. The en-dash should be the second of three in a row. To make sure you have the right one, click the disclosure triangle next to Character Info. Click the Insert button repeatedly to add a row of en-dashes.

I prefer en-dashes to hyphens anyway because they create a continuous line instead of a dashed line (at least in my default font, Times). Underscores should work equally well.

--Craig
vall4
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Joined: 2004-10-24 12:06:18
Location: New York, NY

Post by vall4 »

Craig,

Sorry I haven't responded. I really appreciate your advice. I haven't been toying with Nisus lately -- I'm trying to save my "demo days" -- and I was waiting until I had a number of things to do before I tried your advice.

I understand what you advised, but unfortunately the problem remains even when I use the insert en-dash feature under Special Characters. Now the en-dashes simply disappear when I hit Return. I don't expect this to be resolved, except perhaps in a future edition, unless there's something wrong with my download. It just seems to be a constant bug.

In any event, I really appreciate your advice and assistance.

Take care,
Eli
cchapin
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Location: Nagoya, Japan

Post by cchapin »

That doesn't happen when I try this with en-dashes, but it does happen when I try it with soft hyphens. To distinguish these seemingly identical characters in the OS X character palette, click the triangle next to Character Info so that it points downward. The name of the selected character will appear under the "Related characters" box. You want "EN DASH."

If for some reason that fails, try underscores.

I don't think this is terribly likely, but if you work at a low zoom factor, you might try zooming in. In some programs running under Windows, a low zoom factor can hide some horizontal lines.

I hope something here helps.

--Craig
vall4
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Joined: 2004-10-24 12:06:18
Location: New York, NY

Post by vall4 »

Thanks, Craig. I made sure that it's EN DASH and even zoomed in a bit, and it still doesn't work. Ditto for underscores.

By the way -- and this is where it gets bizarre -- in one of my many trips to Quick Fix, I seem to have accidentally replaced the smiley face emoticon for :-) with a line of hyphens. So now when I type :-) in my doc and press Return, I get the line I've sought! (Kind of like the Woody Allen film where he turns on the sink to flush the toilet, or something to that effect.) Could it be that this is why I can't get the line any other way -- because Nisus has associated the line with a smiley face?? I'd like to set that straight, and get the smiley graphic back to the :-), but don't quite know how. Any thoughts?

Thanks again, and sorry to trouble you.
Eli
cchapin
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Post by cchapin »

When you have QuickFix open do the items under Typo correspond to what's under Correction? If you have a string of dashes next to :-) or :), I can understand how you'd get the result you describe.

If you've lost your smiley face and want it back, I believe you'll find it in the OS X character palette under Miscellaneous (with View set to Roman and the "by Category" tab active).

I've discovered that, after you've made a change to a QuickFix item, you need to tab to or click in a different row before you close the window. The change doesn't seem to take effect unless you do so. Since there's no visual difference between the characters to tell you whether what is entered under "Correction" is a hyphen, a soft hyphen or an en-dash, you would never know from looking that the change wasn't made.

I doubt that the reason you can't get the line you want is because it got assigned to a smiley face "typo." After all, the smiley face character is normally assigned to more than one "typo."

Try editing your QuickFix items again and be sure to tab or click out of the row after you've made each change. Let me know if that doesn't help. Former WordPerfect users have to stick together.

--Craig
hatchmo
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Post by hatchmo »

vall4 wrote:All I wanted to do was turn --- into -------------------------------------------- or ___ into __________________________________, but neither worked.
That's the problem.

Every time you type Return, QuickFix interprets the characters just to the left, and expands them. If you expand multiple dashes to multiple dashes, it keeps seeing dashes to its left all the time. It turns into The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

Instead, turn --- into ___ or turn ___ into ---.
Al Hatch
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