good conversion filters?

[David G Anderson <anderson -at- GLEN-NET -dot- CA>]

Miss Laurel regrets the lack of conversion aids for the instances where she
is to do revision work on a document that arives in an alien format.

My experience is that the so-called "conversion" is usually not necessary in
the first place.

(1) The simplest case is where you don't wish to preserve the submitter's
format and enhancements in the first place. Get them to export a text or
ASCII version and bring the pure text into your preferred editing software.

(2) The second case is where you wish to retain primitive enhancements such
as bold, italics, fine print and such. In this instance, request that the
submitter give over a minimally-formatted version which they can create
either by removing ahead of time sophisticated elements such as columns and
graphics or by selecting a relatively dumb print output device such as an
early model Epson printer or a so-called "standard" printer and directing
printer output to a disk file.

(3) An alternate way of retaining basic enhancements in a pure ASCII text
document is to contrive a simple symbolic convention (a private "markup
language"), e.g.,

 "The Gaelic word <Ital>ceilidh<ital> is frequently misspelled and simply
means <Bold>visit<bold> in the original language."

Subsequently, using the search-and-replace function, we can restore the
basic enhancements in any word processor that we choose for final output.

In summary, always examine the job at hand with a view to avoiding the need
for native format conversion in the first place.







   David G Anderson, Williamstown, ON
   Glengarry Highland Settlement - 1784
           anderson -at- glen-net -dot- ca