TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: Converting to text From:"Peggy Schillinger" <peggy -at- cms-stl -dot- com> To:Ruth Lundquist <rlundquist -at- prosarcorp -dot- com> Date:Tue, 22 Feb 2000 08:46:51 -0600
Ruth Lundquist wrote:
> Does anyone know of a macro, tool, program, utility, potion, magic spell,
> and/or sacrificial offering that will convert a Word document to *readable*
> text?
>
> Readable is the key word here, folks. It's possible to simply "Save
> As=text", but when you try that on a document that has columns, tables, or
> other formatting, you are, in a word, screwed. Another problem we've
> encountered with "Save As=text" is the unique and mystifying ability of
> Word to take a 20 page document and turn it into one long line of text--no
> paragraph breaks, no page breaks--nothing!
Instead of saving a Word file as text, which you've discovered will remove all
the formatting and save only the characters, you should print your Word file as
a text file. To do this, select the generic or text printer driver (I'm going
from memory now--may be called the TTY printer driver) and print to a file.
Selection of printer driver and print to file are options in the print dialog
box. If you have always printed to a laser printer, you might not have the
text printer driver installed on your computer yet.
Hope this helps...
Peggy Schillinger
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peggy Schillinger
STC St. Louis Employment Referral Service Manager
Lead Technical Writer
Computerized Medical Systems, Inc.
peggy -at- cms-stl -dot- com 314-812-4315 fax: 314-993-0075