Morphos: Conversion from NB to WP
Noelle Annette Baker
I am new to the Nota Bene list, so I apologize in advance if my query has
been discussed already. How successfully does Morphos convert Nota Bene
files into WordPerfect? I currently have NB 4.2 with a Lingua
Workstation. My text files in NB display many different tab and format
settings (for instance, on one page one could often see a line of text in
right flush, then a large block of text in left flush, then perhaps
another single line with a centered setting); there are also many
instances of multilingual characters, particularly Greek. I would like to
convert my NB text files into WordPerfect 6.0 or 6.1.
I have been able to convert NB to WP without using Morphos, but I
encountered problems with the special characters, tab settings, and
formatting codes.
I talked to Nota Bene, although the conversation was not too helpful. I
did learn, however, that Morphos will not work with Lingua, so that I
would need to convert all special characters manually.
However, I'm still wondering about format codes and tab settings: has
anyone converted them successfully from NB to WP? Or more generally, do
you have any tips and/or warnings? If Morphos doesn't successfully
convert these tab and formatting codes, I don't want to spend the money on
Morphos (which would also require an upgrade to 4.5).
Thanks for your help.
Noelle Baker
William S. Kurz, SJ
Noelle,
A novice-level response: I have converted at least three articles from Nota
Bene to Word Perfect 5.1 (and I'm virtually certain Morphos handles 6 also)
for publishers who wanted not only my NotaBene generated hardcopy but also a
disk for their publishing staff. As you say, we had to recopy the Lingua
Greek, but all the other codes went over very easily, and then my Teaching
Assistant who works in Word Perfect 5.1 cleaned up the WordPerfect text
before we sent the disk. The process was quite easy, once we gave up on
getting Lingua Greek converted. I hope that when NotaBene moves to Windows
95 (where I am) it will include Lingua, to avoid such future
incompatibilities, but I fear it may not.
Bill Kurz, S.J.
William S. Kurz, S.J.
Professor New Testament Marquette University Jesuit Residence
Marquette University P.O. Box 1881
Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881
Tel: 414/ 288-5000 Fax: 414/ 288-1758 E-mail: Ku...@vms.csd.mu.edu
Michael Dick
The NB change to Windows comes too late for many of us. I have already changed
to Word 6 (and like it). I only linger in NB to change an Akkadian mss I have
been working from NB to Word. I may try Citation 7 as an Ibid replacer. I don't
see how a NB for Windows can possibly compete with the giants.
Michael Dick
Lawrie Cherniack
I have been using Morphos for about a year now to convert to and from WP 6.1
(Win), and WinWord, and NB 4.2, then 4.5. There are usually no
problems. The only big problems have to do with the lousy formatting
that a lot of WP users do that NB makes so easy - the indenting of
paragraphs being the most prevalent one. WP users still use spaces
and/or tabs, and Morphos doesn't always convert them perfectly. The
biggest problem with Morphos is that it doesn't know what my personal
default lay-out is, and thus it sometimes does not convert properly TO
the other word-processors, because it assumes things about my defaults
that aren't necessarily true.
My recollection is that there used to be a command or a menu item in NB
3.1, or maybe even 2.0, that would insert all the default vertical and
horizontal lay-out features in deltas at the beginning of a file. That
would be perfect for Morphos. But I can't find that command or menu
item. Anyone have an idea?
I find Morphos to be better than WP's conversion utility.
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Lawrie Cherniack Winnipeg Manitoba Canada
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