Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 12:12:39 -0700 (PDT) From: Annelise Anderson <andrsn@andrsn.stanford.edu> To: Brian <brian_thurston@rocketship.com> Cc: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Subject: Re: ASCII? Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.970724115637.6742A-100000@andrsn.stanford.edu> In-Reply-To: <199707240916.CAA29074@vector.intergate.bc.ca>
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Brian, with regard to your offer to translate the FAQ and the handbook into Microsoft Word 7 format, I think it's been done (although not made generally available). Also, matters of this kind are handled by John Fieber, who is in charge of the FreeBSD documentation project; thus my cc: to freebsd-doc. The plain text version of these documents includes some backspace characters that provide emphasis. The backspace characters are ascii 008. They can be removed from the file in Microsoft Word 7 with find and replace. The find string is ?^0008 and the replace string should be blank. The ? is a wild card representing any single character, and therefore the "use wildcards" box needs to be checked when doing this and the ? selected from the special character menu. The backspaces and associated double characters can also be replaced in WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS with a search and replace routine. Here again the ? is selected from the menu; then enter Alt-008 to get the backspace. It should show up in the search string as the same symbol the displays in the file. Again, the replacement string should be blank. I agree that the FAQ and handbook should be made available in a form useful on DOS/Windows machines, especially when the system does not include a postscript printer. I don't know how Microsoft Word 7 would handle the postscript version of the FAQ and handbook. Annelise On Thu, 24 Jul 1997, Brian wrote: [....] > I still live in DOS/W95/NT4 world and do all of my formatting and printing > in Windows 95 or NT4. The quality of the editors is outstanding as is the > printed text (without the expense of a PS printer). > > The people most interested in any manual or FAQ are those who wish to read > about a subject before actually installing it onto their hardware. They do > not have 'more' or 'less' or 'printer' because they do not have FreeBSD > installed yet.. > > The largest market is DOS/Windows people who are looking for less-expensive > or more robust alternatives to Microsoft products. I have many customers who > wish to have the power and efficiency of an NT4 or Unix server without > having to spend the $1000's required for the license fee's. Linux and > FreeBSD may be the answer. > > I would be more than happy to translate your manual and FAQ into a format > universally readable in the DOS/Windows world but I require a real 'ascii' > file, as defined by "American Standard Code for Information Interchange". > > I could produce these files in Word for Windows v7.0 format. Microsoft > provides a free viewer that allows 'page size' formating and printing. This > would be an absolute boon to the other DOS-oids out there who wish to move > up for their heavy duty processing duties. > > Let me know how you feel about my proposal and offer? > > Regards, > > Brian. > > ----Original Message----- > From: Annelise Anderson <andrsn@andrsn.stanford.edu> > To: Sergei S. Laskavy <laskavy@cs.msu.su> > Cc: brian_thurston@rocketship.com <brian_thurston@rocketship.com>; > freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG <freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG> > Date: Wednesday, July 23, 1997 1:58 PM > Subject: Re: ASCII? > > > >On Wed, 23 Jul 1997, Sergei S. Laskavy wrote: > > >> >>>>> "Brian" == Brian <briand@intergate.bc.ca> writes: > >> > >> Brian> Hi: I have succeeded in downloading both the FreeBSD > >> Brian> Handbook and FAQ is ascii format. My question is exactly > >> Brian> what flavour of ascii are we talking about? > >> > >> You can read this wich "more" (standard pager) or "less" (GNU pager, > >> from packages/ports) and print it with printer. > >> > >> Brian> The downloaded versions I have are loaded with obscure > >> Brian> formatting information that refusese to be decoded by the > >> Brian> many editors I have. > >> > >> If you want to delete this, I can post you one-line sed script :) > > > >Is this on FreeBSD, or did you download to a dos/Windows machine? > >In FreeBSD you can do > > > >cat FAQ.ascii | col -b > FAQ.txt > > > >col -b removes the ^H sequences. > > > > Annelise > >> > >> Brian> example: > >> > >> Brian> Welcome to FreeBSD! This handbook covers the installation > >> Brian> and day to day use of FFrreeeeBBSSDD > >> Brian> RReelleeaassee 22..22..22. This > >> Brian> manual is a wwoorrkk iinn > >> Brian> pprrooggrreessss and is the work of many > >> Brian> individuals. > > > > >
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