What to do with pure word doc sources?

[Hatton]

Hi guys,
I know SILAS is about formatting USFM-->Word. What would you
recommend these days for going the other direction? That is, we used
to have a template in PNG for adding styles to word and then doing a
"save as sfm". Is that still the thing to do? Would it be
appropriate for you to add that to your downloads section?

thanks
jh

[Jim Henderson Gmail]

Hi John,

Thanks for the suggestion. Responses below:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Hatton" <hatto...@gmail.com>
To: "silas-talk" <silas...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 4:42 PM
Subject: [SILAS-talk] What to do with pure word doc sources?

> I know SILAS is about formatting USFM-->Word. What would you
> recommend these days for going the other direction?
>

The SILAS home page has a link to RTF-to-SFM Converter, which does just
that, and handles Unicode.

> That is, we used
> to have a template in PNG for adding styles to word and then doing a
> "save as sfm". Is that still the thing to do? Would it be
> appropriate for you to add that to your downloads section?
>

I'd rather not, for several reasons:

1. The PNG template had stylenames specific to the PNG version of SFM, so
the user's RTF file would need to use those stylenames for the data, and the
stylenames used in USFM are very different.

2. The conversion used a single large and complex macro, and the RTF-to-SFM
Converter approach is easier to manage, because it depends on an external
control file, so you don't have to be a VBA macro programmer to modify it --
any computer support person can do it.

3. The PNG template can't handle Unicode.

4. For data files that were based on the PNG template, the user probably has
that template available already.

5. For data files that were based on the template from the international
team (SCR_V2.dot), the old SF converter can be used.

6. If a data file turns up with no styles attached, I'd be inclined to add
USFM codes to it as appropriate, then copy it to the clipboard and paste it
into Paratext.

What do others think?
Jim

[John Nystrom]

John H,

One of the things that attracted the IPub guis to Silas is that it only goes
one way. They really want to discourage people editing in Word and then
saving as SFM. Part of the reason for this is that when you do that, you
don't have the opportunity to use the Paratext tools that help you keep your
data clean. Compounding the problem is the issue of people not using the
styles consistently and for their intended purpose. The result is often
dirty data. For our team, we go strictly one-way as well. If we find a
problem when we see it in a Word file we're about to print, we go back to
Paratext and fix it there.

John N

-----Original Message-----
From: silas...@googlegroups.com [mailto:silas...@googlegroups.com] On
Behalf Of Hatton
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 5:13 PM
To: silas-talk
Subject: [SILAS-talk] What to do with pure word doc sources?

[John Hatton]

Wow, nice fast replies. Thanks guys.

JH> The SILAS home page has a link to RTF-to-SFM Converter, which does just
that, and handles Unicode.

Oh, thanks, sorry I missed that.

JH> 6. If a data file turns up with no styles attached, I'd be inclined to

add
USFM codes to it as appropriate, then copy it to the clipboard and paste it
into Paratext.

In the past, I macro'ed the bulk of the work of applying styles, then taught
people to use the old template, with all its buttons, to fix up the styles,
then exported to SFM. I'm not too keen on teaching old-dogs new tricks if
it can be avoided.

JN>They really want to discourage people editing in Word and then saving as
SFM.

We deal with people "coming in from the cold", not necessarily even with an
organization, looking for checking/publishing help. This was as true in PNG
as here. For example, recently, a complete OT+NT. It's a bit late to tell
them how they should'a done it, see?

BTW, this most recent one is to come out in three volumes, *each in its own
script*. We're also being asked to help with the minor issue of
spell-checking ;-)

Again, thanks for the help.

jh

[Kim Blewett (gm)]

Hi John & all,

John Hatton wrote:

JN> 6. If a data file turns up with no styles attached, I'd be inclined to add
USFM codes to it as appropriate, then copy it to the clipboard and paste it
into Paratext.

JH> In the past, I macro'ed the bulk of the work of applying styles, then taught
people to use the old template, with all its buttons, to fix up the styles,
then exported to SFM.  I'm not too keen on teaching old-dogs new tricks if
it can be avoided.
  

You could revise your macros to apply the new stylenames (Silas's). Or you could use your old system to attach the styles, then use SFC or RTF2SFM with a custom control file to export the USFM markers rather than the old set.

Or you could use your old system, then convert from PNGSFM to USFM--I think Michael K.J. has a pretty straightforward converter available.

Or you could semi-automate the insertion of SFMs rather than stylenames, but that's the "new tricks" you're trying to avoid, I guess.

I agree with Jim & John that we should not include this in Silas, but I see your point, and a tool for consultants would be useful. Maybe it'd be worth fixing up a template with USFM stylenames so that RTF2SFM would work on  it? Shouldn't be too difficult to copy the buttons & the Insert Verse#s macros, etc, from Scr_v2 to another dot, then attach the correct styles to the buttons & clean up. I'd say, don't include formatting niceties and keep it separate from Silas, though stylenames fully compatible so Silas could be attached smoothly for formatting.

**By the way**, ReformatVerseNumbers, etc, is still functional in Silas, though we didn't create a button for it. Access it from the macro window. Run ReformatVerseNumbers.Main or InsertVerseNumber.Main.

Hope this helps,
Kim

[Jim Henderson Gmail]

John Hatton wrote:
----- Original Message -----

From: "John Hatton" <hatto...@gmail.com>
To: <silas...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 6:32 PM
Subject: [SILAS-talk] Re: What to do with pure word doc sources?

> We deal with people "coming in from the cold",
>

> BTW, this most recent one is to come out in three volumes, *each in its
> own
> script*. We're also being asked to help with the minor issue of
> spell-checking ;-)
>

Bad Olson has developed a new version of the spelling checking tool for
Paratext, that you might find helpful. I could email anyone the package, or
Brad's address.

Jim

[John Hatton]

> Bad Olson has developed a new version of the spelling checking tool for
> Paratext, that you might find helpful. I could email anyone the
> package, or
> Brad's address.

Thanks Jim. Please do send his address to me.

jh