Re: Side Effect of File Format Conversions

From: Martin Sevior (msevior@physics.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Fri Aug 23 2002 - 00:14:20 EDT

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    On Fri, 2002-08-23 at 12:53, Hal Vaughan wrote:
    > I have a HUGE archive of Word Perfect files and since I've changed to OSS, I
    > naturally want to not just convert them, but make them as accessible as I
    > can. I've lost data before due to bad conversions or when I thought one
    > format was easily converted and prematurely gave up access to the older
    > program that could handle an older format.
    >
    > I've noticed that AbiWord does the BEST conversions of WP files I've seen (My
    > files are in WP 7/8/9 format -- that's how WP shows it in lists). I've
    > noticed a side effect of the conversions, though. My files are primarily
    > video scripts, which means the margin can change MANY times in one page.
    > While Abi has no trouble with the margin changes, when I convert a WP file to
    > Abi, if I have to export it, there is trouble. I took several script files
    > and went through the process of converting them to AbiWord, then to other
    > formats (mostly RTF, M$ Word, and Star Office 6.0). I noticed that when I
    > exported these files, every margin change resulted in a new page. A script
    > that was 130 pages was suddenly over 2100 pages!
    >
    > I borrowed a friend's laptop with Word 2000 on it and took parts of some
    > scripts and converted them from WP to Word, then converted them to AbiWord.
    > There was no problem with the margin-change = new-page problem. I looked at
    > the actual file in a text editor to compare them.
    >
    > What I found that seems to make the difference is that the import from Word
    > seems to only use <section></section> tags at pages or similar major changes.
    > The WP import seems to use <section> tags every time there is a margin
    > change. It seems to me it is these <section> tags that are causing not only
    > a margin change, but also a new page when AbiWord files are imported into
    > other word processors.
    >
    > I've noticed the props can be set in a <p> tag as well as in a section tag.
    > I've got 2 thoughts on this: 1) If I write a perl script that will go through
    > the file and take the props set in the <section> tags and set them in <p>
    > tags instead, then remove all the <section> tags, will that cause any
    > problems? 2) Is there any (simple) way to take care of this in AbiWord? I
    > would think it would simply be a matter of not using <section> tags unless
    > necessary and setting all the props in <p> tags. Is that as simple as it
    > sounds? (I'm not a professional programmer, so I realize what sounds easy to
    > me may be a nightmare in C or C++).
    >
    Hi Hal,
            Thanks for your very detailed description of the problem.

    I will forward it to the abiword-dev amiling list. We have Will Lachance
    and Marc Maurier have done the work on the Wprd Perfect importer and
    will be very interested in your comments.

    Just a brief clarification. Margins can be set per paragraph ( the <p>
    tag) or per page (the <section> tag). We may be screwing up on export
    by making new sections start on new pages by default.

    I'll investigate.

    One more request. Could file this bug report in our bugzilla?

    http://bugzilla.abisource.com/

    Thanks!

    Martin

    Margin changes require a section. It appears we are not correctly
    setting the section properties on export to different file formats and
    in particular RTF.

    Could please enter this bug into

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