We're trying to figure something out and have been having some
difficulty.  We are having a series of articles written for our
website and the authors would prefer to do these in Word because of
the editing capabilities.  That's fine for the most part but we do
need to have a plain-text version available.  This version would be
set up as an autoresponder so that someone could e-mail an address and
have the plain-text version sent to them.

The issue we're having is that when we convert the Word doc to plain
text some of the formatting always seems to remain intact.  When that
happens, the plain text version ends up looking funky.  There are line
breaks in the wrong places or strange characters that end up there.

What I'm looking for is a process that will allow us to take the Word
doc and convert it into a plain text doc with no formatting.  Ideally,
the solution would involve not having to make any configuration
changes to Word although that's an option if it has to happen.

Please post your answer first as a comment so that I can test it
before signing off on it as a satisfactory answer.

Thanks!

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 01 Sep 2005 12:09 PDT

You didn't mention how you are currently converting the file from Word
to text, and it would help us to know.

In the mean time, try the method mentioned in the comments (below),
and you can also try using the "Save as" option on the File pull down
menu, and selecting "text" as the format to save your file.

Let us know how things work out.


pafalafa-ga

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Clarification of Question by jpbischke-ga on 01 Sep 2005 12:28 PDT

See below...

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 01 Sep 2005 20:02 PDT

See above!   Have you tried the "Save as" option????

I still think this might be your best bet.


paf

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Clarification of Question by jpbischke-ga on 02 Sep 2005 12:51 PDT

Just to be a little more clear.  Here's what I've tried to do:

1.  Write the article in Microsoft Word (with all smart quotes, etc. turned off)
2.  Copy the article from one Word doc to another using the "Paste
Special" command and choosing "unformatted text" as the option.
3.  Taking the text from Word and pasting it to
http://www.web-source.net/format_text.htm to get line breaks at 64
cpl.
4.  Copying the result into our autoresponder.

In steps 1-4, the text looks like the following:


Anchoring can be used to your benefit by helping you to recall 
feelings of confidence and past peak performances. A great way 
to practice visualization and anchoring is through a series of 
audio programs created by Nicholas Rosa. Integrating Mind & 
Body: NLP for Better Golf - Driving will help you to link a 
"trigger" with your memories of the best drives you've ever hit. 
Integrating Mind & Body: NLP for Better Golf - Putting will do a 
similar thing for your short game.  

However, when I receive the e-mail autoresponder, the text always looks as follows:

Anchoring can be used to your benefit by helping you to recall
feelings of confidence and past peak performances. A great way to
practice visualization and anchoring is through a series of audio
programs created by Nicholas Rosa. Integrating Mind &
Body: NLP for Better Golf - Driving will help you to link a "trigger"
with your memories of the best drives you've ever hit.
Integrating Mind & Body: NLP for Better Golf - Putting will do a
similar thing for your short game.

As I look at the above paragraph I realize that the lines aren't
breaking at 64 characters so potentially there are two problems here.

Any ideas?

Try copying the text from one word document to another and when you
paste use the EDIT --> PASTE SPECIAL --> UNFORMATTED TEXT  option
then copy and paste into whatever document requires it

I have tried doing the Paste Special > Unformatted Text thing but that
still has a few problems.

What I am doing is currently as follows:

1.  Edit > Paste Special > Unformatted Text from Word into Notepad.
2.  Copy and Paste from Notepad to this website
http://www.web-source.net/format_text.htm to get the proper line
breaks (max of 64 cpl)
3.  Copy and Paste back to Notepad

What I'm finding is certain characters (e.g., "-") aren't coming
through properly (they are showing up as boxes instead) and there
still are some improper line breaks.

I'm not quite sure how to proceed from here.

jpbischke-ga,

Tell your authors not to use anything "smart". No smart quotes, smart hyphens, etc.

- Hammer

Cool.  I had removed smart quotes but I wasn't aware that there was
such a thing as a "smart hyphen".  I'll instruct them as such.  That
might do the trick.  I'll report back if it does.

I'm still getting some crazy line breaks that I can't figure out. 
Here's an example of what one of the paragraphs looks like:

Anchoring can be used to your benefit by helping you to recall
feelings of confidence and past peak performances. A great way to
practice visualization and anchoring is through a series of audio
programs created by Nicholas Rosa. Integrating Mind &
Body: NLP for Better Golf - Driving will help you to link a "trigger"
with your memories of the best drives you've ever hit.
Integrating Mind & Body: NLP for Better Golf - Putting will do a
similar thing for your short game.

I can't figure out why this is happening nor how to correct it.  Any thoughts?

I have vendors that also provide msword files when I want unformatted text. 

I open their word file.  I click "File/Save As" and choose MSDOS-Text
*.txt. and click save. I then close the file. I then open the file,
and it's now reformmatted in courier with all line breaks in tact.

I don't know if this is enough text scrubbing for you, but it works for me.

Also, I use an autoresponder that goes out in Times Roman/Arial etc,
but because I have outlook set up as plain text, it goes out as plain
text.  I've also used RTF in the past, but am not sure how...

<<< I'm still getting some crazy line breaks that I can't figure out. 
Here's an example of what one of the paragraphs looks like: >>>

I'm not sure what's "crazy" about those line breaks. Can you be more specific?

Also, have you tried the Save As option yet?

- Hammer

I think many of the text format saves in Word preserve the original
line breaks, which are probably calculated using proportional spacing.

Select the whole text, change font to 12 pt Courier, then try. On an
A4 page this should give you about the right line length too --
increase the L and R page margins if necessary.

Owain