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How do I get rid of the "nag" lines?Easy. You register the software (see "registration and updates"), or you remove them by hand. "Nag" lines only appear in unregistered trial copies of the software. If you register, these are removed.
My file has had it's case changed and letters replaced at random by numbers. How do I fix that?The case is only adjusted in unregistered trial copies of the software, either after the line limit is reached, or after the 30 day trial has expired. The case is adjusted so that you can still evaluate the conversion has produced the right type of HTML, but since the text is now all in the wrong case and had letters substitutes the HTML is of little use to you.
Why do I sometimes get <DL> markup? How do I stop it?The program is detecting a "definition". Definitions are usually keywords with a following colon ":" or hyphen "-", e.g. "text:" You can see this more easily if you go to Output-Style and toggle the "highlight definition term" option... the definition term (to the left of the definition character) is then highlighted in bold. If the definition spreads over 2 "lines", then ...
Why are some of my words being broken in two?Sometimes AscToHTM will produce HTML with words broken - usually over two lines. This can happen if your text file has been edited using a program (like NotePad) that doesn't place line breaks in the output. AscToHTM is line-orientated (see 2.1.2). Programs like NotePad place an entire paragraph on a single "line", or on lines of a fixed length (e.g. 1000 characters). AscT...
Why am I getting line breaks in the middle of my text?The software will add a line break to "short" lines, or - sometimes - to lines with hyperlinks in them. You can edit your text to prevent the line being short, or you can use policies to alter the calculation of short lines. Use the "Policy Manual" to read about the following policies
Do you mean line structure, or do you really mean paragraph structure?The program looks for "short lines". Short lines can mark the last line in a paragraph, but more usually indicate an intentionally short line. The calculation of what is a short line and what isn't can be complex, as it depends on the length of the line, compared to the estimate with of the page. enable the "Preserve line structure" policy. This will cause your output to e...
Why am I getting lots of white space?Usually because you had lots of white space in your original document. If that is the case, then you can set the policy Some people complain that there are blank lines between paragraphs, or between changes in indentation. Often this is the vertical spacing inserted by default in HTML. This can only be controlled in later versions of HTML which support HTML¡4.0 and Cascadi...
What's the largest file anyone's ever converted with AscToHTM?Well, at time of writing, I know of a 56,000 line file (3Mb) which was converted into a single (4Mb) HTML file. Of course, it was also converted in a suite of 300 smaller, linked, files weighing in at 5Mb of HTML. Although the software has no ability to understand documents written this way, and was designed to cope with the ASCII character set, from version 4.0 onwards it...
Why does the program hang after a conversion?Under Windows the software usually tries to display the results files in your browser or viewer of choice. To prevent multiple instances of the browser being launched, DDE is used. DDE is a Windows mechanism that allow requests to be passed from one program to another, in this case the software is asking the browser to display the HTML just created. Some users have reporte...
Why doesn't it convert Word/Wordperfect/RTF/my favourite wp documents?The software is designed to convert ASCII text into HTML. That is plain, unformatted documents. Word and other wp packages use binary formats that contain formatting codes embedded in the text (or in some cases the text is embedded in the codes :-). Even RTF, which is a text file, is so heavily full of formatting information that it could not be perceived as normal text (l...
How can I use DDE with Netscape 6.0?You can't. Unlike Netscape versions up to and including 4.7, Netscape 6.0 doesn't support DDE in its initial release under Windows.
Can I use AscToHTM to build a web site with a shopping cart?AscToHTM can only really produce relatively "static", mostly-text web pages. To add any dynamic contents and graphics you'd effectively need to add the relevant HTML yourself, so the answer is essentially "no". Adding a shopping cart is actually fairly tricky. You either have to install the software yourself, or sign up with an ISP that will do this for you. Most such syst...
How do I interrupt a conversion?present you can't. The windows version won't respond to stimulus while a conversion is in progress, meaning that the windows will not refresh. Normally this isn't a problem, but in large conversions this can be a little disconcerting.
How does the program detect and analyse tables?Here's an overview of how the software works, this will give you a flavour for the complexity of the issues that need to be addressed. Spotting lines that are clearly formatted, looking for large white space and any table-like characters like '|' and '+'. If may also look for code-like lines and diagram-like lines according to the policies set. Each time a heavily formatte...
Why am I getting tables? How do I stop it?The software will attempt to detect regions of "pre-formatted" text. Once detected it will attempt to place such regions in tables, or if that fails sometimes in <PRE>...</PRE> markup. Lines with lots of horizontal white space or "table characters" (such as "|". "-". "+") are all candidates for being pre-formatted, especially where several of these lines occur....
Why am I not getting tables?First read "how does the program detect and analyse tables?" for an overview of how tables are detected. If you're not getting tables this is either because they are not being detected, or that having been detected they are being deemed to be not "table-like". Look at the HTML code to see if there are any comments around your table indicating how it's been processed. the l...
Why do my tables have the wrong column structure?First read "how does the program detect and analyse tables?" for an introduction to how tables columns are analysed. The short answer is "the analysis went wrong". Answering why it went wrong is almost impossible to answer in a general way. Some things to consider Was the table extent correctly calculated? If adjacent lines were wrongly sucked into the table this will affe...
Where did all my table lines go?The software removed them because it thought they would look wrong as characters. The lines are usually replaced by a non-zero BORDER value and/or some <HR> tags placed in cells.
How can I get the program to recognize my table header?One tip. If you insert a line of dashes after the header like so... Basic Dimensions Hole No. X Y ------------------------- 1 3.2500 5.0150 2 1.2500 3.1250 etc..... The program should recognize this as a heading, and modify the HTML accordingly (placing it in bold). Alternatively you can tell the program (via the policy options or preprocessor commands) that the file has 2...
Why am I getting strange COLSPAN values in my headers?The spanning of "Basic Dimensions" over the other lines can be hit and miss. Basically if you have a space where the column gap is expected the text will be split into cells, if you don't then the text will be placed in a cell with a COLSPAN value that spans several cells. For example | space aligns with column "gap" v Basic Dimensions Hole No. X Y ------------------------...
How does the program recognize headings?Numbered headings. These are lines that begin with section numbers. To reduce errors, numbers must be broadly in sequence and headings at the same level should have the same indentation. Words like "Chapter" may be before the number, but may confuse the analysis when present. Underlined headings. These are lines which are followed by a line consisting solely of "underline"...
Why are my headings coming out as hyperlinks?This is a failure of analysis. The program looks for a possible contents list at the top of the file before the main document (sometimes in the first section). If your file has no contents list, but the program wrongly expects one, then as it encounters the headings it will mark these up as contents lines. to "no". Or add a preprocessor line to the top of your file as foll...
Why are the numbers of my headings coming out as hyperlinks?Either a failure of analysis, or an error in your document. The software checks headings "obey policy" and are in sequence. If you get your numbering sequence wrong, or if you place the heading line at a radically different indentation to all the others, then the software will reject this as a heading line, in which case the number may well be turned into a hyperlink. For ...
Why are various bullets being turned into headings, and the headings ignored?To try and get it right it checks the sequence number, and the indentation of the line. However problems can still occur if a list item on the right number appears at the correct indentation in a section. In extreme cases, the list items will confuse the software into thinking they are the headings. In such a case you'd need to change the policy file to say what the headin...
Why are lines beginning with numbers being treated as headings?The software can detect numbered headings. Any lines that begin with numbers are checked to see if they are the next heading. This check includes checking the number is (nearly) in sequence, and that the line is (nearly) at the right indentation. If the line meets these criteria, it is likely to become the next heading, often causing the real heading to be ignored, and som...
Why are underlined headings not recognized?The software prefers numbered headings to underlined or capitalised headings. If you have both, you may need to switch the underlined headings on via the policy
Why are only some of my underlined headings not recognized?If the program is looking for underlined headings (see "Why are underlined headings not recognized?") then the only reason for this is that the "underlining" is of a radically different length to the line being underlined. Problems can also occur for long lines that get broken.
How do I control the header level of underlined headings?The level of heading associated with an underlined heading depends on the underline character as follows:- '****' level 1 '====','////' level 2 '----','____','~~~~' level 3 '....' level 4 The actual markup that each heading gets may depend on your policies. In particular level 3 and level 4 headings may be given the same size markup to prevent the level 4 heading becoming ...
Why are only the first few headings are working?a numbered list is confusing the software. This is the same problems as "why are the numbers of my headings coming out as hyperlinks?" Some of your headings are "failing" the checks applied. See the discussion in "how does the program recognize headings?" One of the reasons for "failure" is that - for consistency - headings must be in sequence and at the same indentation. ...
Why doesn't it correctly parse my hyperlinks?The software attempts to recognize all URLs, but the problem is that - especially near the end of the URL - punctuation characters can occur. The software then has difficulty distinguishing a comma separated list of URLs from a URL with a series of commas in it (as beloved at C|Net). This algorithm is being improved over time, but there's not much more you can do than manu...
Why doesn't it recognize my favourite newsgroup?To avoid errors the program will only recognize newsgroups in the "big 7" hierarchies. Otherwise filenames like "command.com" might become unwanted references to fictional newsgroups. This means that uk.telecom won't be recognized, although if you place "news:" in from of it like this news:uk.telecom then it is recognized.
Why are only some of my section references becoming hyperlinks?The program will only convert numbers that match known numbered sections into hyperlinks. If the number is a genuine section heading, then the chances are that this level of heading has not been detected. This has happened in large documents which contained only 2 level 5 headings. In such document you may need to manually add the extra level to your policy file. Another l...
Why are some numbers becoming hyperlinks?In a numbered document numbers of the form n.n may well become hyperlinks to that section of the document. This can cause "Windows 3.1" to become a hyperlink to section 3.1 if such a section exists in your document. You can either insert some character (such as "V" to make "V3.1"), place the number inside a protective pre-processor TEXT tag as follows
Why are some long hyperlinks not working?The software will sometimes break long lines to make the HTML more readable. If this happens in the middle of a hyperlink, the browser reads the end of line as a space in the URL. You can fix this by editing the output text so that the HREF="<url>" part of the file is all on the same line.
How do I preserve one URL per line?Some files contain lists of URLs, with one URL per line. By default the software will not normally preserve this structure because long lines are usually concatenated into a single paragraph.
How many policies are there? Where can I read more about individual policies?First time I looked it was nearly 200, recently the number is approaching 250. They kind of sneak up on you, I guess. The "Policy Manual" gives a pretty comprehensive description of what each one does and where it can be found. Last time I checked that file was 5000 lines of text before conversion to HTML. People complain that there are too many policies, but then they say...
My policy file used to work, but now it doesn't. Why?Make sure you're using an "incremental" policy file, rather than a full one. You can do this by viewing the .pol file in a text editor. An "incremental" policy file will only contain lines for the policies you've changed. A full policy file will contain all possible policies. If you load a "full" policy file you prevent the program intelligently adjusting to the particular...
Why is the indentation wrong on follow-on paragraphs?The program can't distinguish between indented paragraphs and paragraphs that are intended as follow-on paragraphs from some bullet point or list item. This means that whilst the first paragraph (the one with the bullet point) is indented as a result of being placed inside appropriate list markup, the second and subsequent paragraphs are just treated as indented text. The ...
Why is the numbering wrong on some of my list items?HTML doesn't allow the numbering to be marked up explicitly. Instead you can only use a START attribute in the <OL> tag to get the right first number which is incremented each time a <LI> tag is seen. I've also seen a bug in Opera V3.5 where any tag (such as <EM>) placed between the <OL> and the <LI> causes the numbering to increment. That sho...
Some of my text has gone missing. What happened?There's a bug (in Opera), where a <FONT> tag between the <OL> and <LI> tag causes all that text to not be displayed. That shouldn't be a problem here, as that's illegal HTML markup - and we try very hard not to generate any of that!
How do I add a contents list to my file?If the file already has a contents list this may be detected if the sections are numbered, and the contents line will be turned into links to the sections concerned. A hyperlinked contents list will be generated from the headings that the program detects. This list will be placed at the top of the first file. If you don't want the generated list to be placed at the top of ...
Why doesn't my contents list doesn't show all my headings?If you're generating a contents list from the observed headings, then any missing headings are either because The policy Maximum level to show in contents has been set to a value that excludes the desired heading. If you're converting an in-situ contents list, then only (a) is likely to apply, in which case you need to ensure the program recognizes your headings. There use...
Why didn't my emphasis markup work?Emphasis markup can be achieved by placing asterisks (*) or underscores (_) in pairs around words or phrases. The matching pair can be over a few lines, but cannot span a blank line. Asterisks and underscores can be nested. Asterisks generate bold markup, underscores generate italic markup, and combining these generates bold, italic markup. If you wrap a phrase in undersco...
What is the Link Dictionary?The link dictionary allows you to add hyperlinks to particular words or phrases. You can choose the phrase to be matched, the text to be displayed and the URL to be linked to. This can help when building a site by converting multiple text files. For example the whole www.jafsoft.com site is built from text files, and extensive use of a link dictionary is made to add links ...
My links aren't coming out right. Why?if the "match text" matches part of the URL the program may get confused. Try to keep them different. One tip is to place brackets round the [match text] in your source file... this not only makes the chances of a false match less likely, but also makes it clearer in the source files where the hyperlinks will be.
I can't enter links into the Link Dictionary. What gives?The Link Dictionary support in the Windows version of the software is a little quirky. Apologies for that. For more information see the section "Processing several files at once" in the main documentation. The software supports wildcards, and console versions are available to registered users which are better suited for batch conversions. In the shareware versions no more ...
How do I convert a few files at once?If you only want a few files converted, then the simplest way is to drag and drop those files onto the program. You can either drag files onto the program's icon on the desktop, or onto the program itself. If you drag files onto the program's icon there is a limit with this approach of around 10 files. This limit arises because the filenames are concatenated to make a comm...
How do I convert lots of files at once?If you want to convert many files in the same directory, then just type in a wildcard like "*.txt" into the name of the files to be converted. Registered users of the software can get a console version of the software. This can accept wildcards on the command line, and is more suited for batch conversion, e.g. from inside windows batch files (for example it won't grab focu...
What's the most files I can convert at one go?The largest number of files converted at one time using the wildcard function was reported to be around 2000. A week later someone contacted me with around 3000 files to be converted. A few weeks after that someone was claiming 7000. If you'd like to claim a higher number, let me know. Theoretically the only limit is your disk space. The program operates on a flat memory m...
Why isn't file splitting working for me?The program can only split into files at headings it recognises (see "how does the program recognize headings?"). You first need to check that the program is correctly determining where the headings are, and what type they are. Headings can be numbered, capitalised or underlined. To tell if the program is correctly detecting the headings If the headings are wrong, check th...
How do I suppress the Next/Previous navigation bar when splitting a large document?Prior to version 4 there was a bug which meant the policy "Add navigation bar" was being ignored when splitting files (the only time it was used). This is now fixed. However also available in version 4 is a new "HTML fragments" feature that allows you to customize some of the HTML generated by the software. This includes the navigation bars so that, for example, if you wan...
Why am I getting regions of <PRE> text?The software attempts to detect pre-formatted text in your files and, when it finds some, attempts to turn these into tables. In many cases having detected some pre-formatted text it recognises that it cannot make a table and so resorts to using <PRE>...</PRE> markup instead (in RTF is uses courier font), giving a "mal-formed table" error message. These <PRE...
Do you have a html-to-text converter, rtf-to-html converter etc?My converters convert from plain ASCII text into HTML or RTF. Their "unique selling point" is that they intelligently work out the structure of the text file. There are a number of html->text converters on top of which Netscape has a good "save as text" feature. Or you can import the HTML into Word and use Word's save as text features (although in my opinion these are i... |
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Conversion Questions