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keesan
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The Windows > DOS software item
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Apr 8 14:13 UTC 2002 |
Questions about how to use alternative (DOS) software to deal with MS files.
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| 269 responses total. |
keesan
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response 1 of 269:
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Apr 8 14:15 UTC 2002 |
Someone just sent me a zip file which contains three .rtf files, two of which
start with the same 8 characters. pkunzip, when it reached the second file,
said a file by that name already exists and gave me a choice of overwriting
the file or not. I said no, and got out only two not three files. Is there
some way to use pkunzip or some other DOS unzip program to get out all three
files? And is there a DOS rtf reader that will handle 'Windows rtf' files?
The one I have (VIEW) does not seem to work, just gave me all the rtf tags.
The simplest solution was to ask for them to convert the rtf to ascii and give
8-character distinct file names.
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keesan
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response 2 of 269:
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Apr 8 15:09 UTC 2002 |
I converted the rtf to ascii and here is what I got. Is this some cousin of
html? Why would it be sent to a translator? I omitted company name.
C:\DOWNLOAD\ANCILLAR.RTF
Normal;tw4winMark;tw4winError;tw4winPopup;tw4winJump;tw4winExternal;tw4winIntern
l;tw4winTerm;DO_NOT_TRANSLATE;
<stf "F3.01">
<sourcecharset "Normal">
<sourcelanguage "English (US)">
<sourcehyphenation "Turn Off">
Solution_278004r2¨Phase1_convertions_for_translation¨mif¨278004-002-body.mif">
<bb "Cross-Reference Formats">
<bb "Variable"><:v "<:bb "paratext[Chapter Title]">" 1>
<vfmt "Running H/F 3"><:bb "paratext[Chapter Title]">
<bb "Variable"><:v "<:bb "curpagenum">" 2>
<vfmt "Current Page #"><:bb "curpagenum">
<bb "Variable"><:v "User's Guide" 3>
<vfmt "Manual Title">{>User's Guide<}{User's Guide<0}
(there was lots more - with all the actual English words doubled)
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aruba
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response 3 of 269:
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Apr 8 15:36 UTC 2002 |
RTF is a file format that stores typesetting information as well as text,
though the file itself is text. If you want to send someone a Word
document, you can save it as RTF and send that without losing the
formatting. It's easier to transmit, since it's text and smaller than the
original word doc, and portable to other applications (and among different
versions of Word). It also can't contain viruses the way a Word doc can.
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keesan
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response 4 of 269:
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Apr 8 16:13 UTC 2002 |
That is interesting to know about the viruses and about RTF being portable
between versions of WORD. I used a program called VIEW to convert the RTF
to ascii. All those tags are TRADOS tags. The person who sent the zip file
said she would send me an rtf file. I have no idea what that will be.
What is TRADOS? Why are all the English phrases in it doubled? They
apparently converted the TRADOS to rtf. This is all from a Czech translation
agency which for some reason is translating a computer manual from English
to Macedonian and found my website.
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keesan
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response 5 of 269:
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Apr 8 16:18 UTC 2002 |
TRADOS is software for translations and localization. The Czechs are doing
software localization - anyone have any experience in that? We had a French
friend who was doing it and had to make the French short enough to fit into
the space occupied by the English. His primary complaint is that the software
was badly written even in English.
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krj
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response 6 of 269:
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Apr 8 17:04 UTC 2002 |
(RTF stands for Rich Text Format, IIRC.)
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rlejeune
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response 7 of 269:
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Apr 8 20:32 UTC 2002 |
I thought it was an abbreviation of RTFM.
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keesan
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response 8 of 269:
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Apr 9 00:34 UTC 2002 |
Still no new file. I cannot even imagine what format the Macedonian might
arrive in. We may end up going the scan-print-pdf route again. I can convert
pdf to pbm or ps now and read it, at least. Perhaps they can export to html?
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gelinas
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response 9 of 269:
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Apr 9 03:16 UTC 2002 |
Try moving the first file, giving it a new name, then let pkunzip overwrite
when it gets to the second file. Thus you would end up with
file1new # the first file with a new name
file1 # the second file with the first name
file3S # the third file
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keesan
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response 10 of 269:
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Apr 9 13:21 UTC 2002 |
How do I use pkunzip to unzip files one at a time rather than all at once?
This is purely theoretical by now. They finally realized that I am not a
native speaker of Macedonian, which I have been telling them all along, when
I pointed out that I cannot correct grammar errors in their Macedonian.
Somehow I was not expecting this to turn into paid employment.
I think somewhere I may have a .doc file for pkunzip.....
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tsty
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response 11 of 269:
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Apr 9 13:51 UTC 2002 |
pkzip/unzip comes with its own help file ...
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keesan
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response 12 of 269:
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Apr 9 13:52 UTC 2002 |
You mean pkunzip /h or /? I will try that. Thanks. Curious what form the
Macedonian is in. One time someone sent me Cyrillic that consisted solely of
?? ? ????? ??. They saved it as text but not as Cyrillic.
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keesan
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response 13 of 269:
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Apr 9 15:15 UTC 2002 |
I think the idea with pkunzip was to unzip all the files, tell it not to
overwrite, rename the first file, and unzip again letting it overwrite.
But they figured out how to name all three files differently before zipping
them this time. They sent me a zip file containing three files in Macedonain
- Macedon.zip (8 characters). This file unzipped to mac- bod.rtf and mac-
fro.rtf and ancilar.rtf (they apparently shortened the long file names by
removing a number that was identical in both files, but did not shorten the
resulting names to 8 characters and body was cut off to bod). The first two
files have spaces in them, which DOS is not happy with. I could not view
either of them with my DOS-based VIEW program (file does not exist or is zero
length) or with Newdeal (which uses a menu system and found the files but
could not open them). I could not rename the files with DOS rename. I could
look at them with LIST by typing LIST *.rtf. I could view the ancilar.rtf
file with Newdeal. Newdeal does not handle Cyrillic and instead told me
Language 1024 and then /'e08/ etc. Lots of strings of coded characters. Where
can I find a list of how the codes correspond to ASCII numbers, assuming that
they do?
I had asked these people to convert their files to ascii or at least
to WORD so I could read them. I can read WORD 6 for Win31. Or they could
have printed everything out on a page or two and emailed me a scanned file.
Or converted to html if they knew how to do that. Apparently they don't know
how to remove TRADOS tags - they said they removed some of them. The TRADOS
version refers to PDF a few times. I could have dealt with a PDF file but
not a TRADOS file of Cyrillic in Windows rtf format.
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gull
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response 14 of 269:
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Apr 9 17:07 UTC 2002 |
I think you can give pkunzip a list of files to extract from an
archive, but it's been so long since I used it on the command line I
can't remember. These days I tend to use WinZip or Alladin Expander.
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aruba
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response 15 of 269:
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Apr 9 21:27 UTC 2002 |
You could use Norton Utilities to go in and change the names of those files
to not have spaces.
Word 6 for Win31 should be able to read rtf files, I think.
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keesan
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response 16 of 269:
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Apr 10 14:37 UTC 2002 |
Thanks, I will try Word 6 on them next time, if there is a next time.
I wish people would learn to use Windows enough to be able to convert their
files to ASCII. Lots of Windows users don't even know how to rename files.
Next problem, which Mark has been trying to help us with. Tim Ryan gave us
a partly-working Canon Multipass CMP3500 printer which uses a 25M zipped
(self-executing) driver that we cannot manage to fit into our computer. Mark
suggested downloading one for a previous modem (3000) which we are about to
try. But since we are not interesting in doing anything except simple
printing, would a driver from another Canon BJ printer work as well? Win95
comes with lots of those already (BJ4000 takes the same cartridge, I think).
The C3000.exe file is 8M - I cannot imagine how they got the CMP3500.exe file
up to 25M when the two models appear to do the same things (fax, copy, print).
At one point the computer said it needed a bidirectional cable - is that the
same as IEEE shielded cable or would an ordinary printer cable work? We can
get the IEEE for $5 from MCM Electronics. Our friend offered to lend us the
one he bought for only $25 retail.
I have a non-windows program that claims to print with BJ4000 driver but it
told me the port was already in use - is that a cable problem? The port was
in use only because we had it hooked up to the Canon printer.
A friend's Canon BJ printer will print from DOS (printscreen, text editor)
but this one will not.
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blaise
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response 17 of 269:
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Apr 10 18:04 UTC 2002 |
You could also use DOS rename -- "rename mac-?bod.rtf mac-body.rtf"
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gull
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response 18 of 269:
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Apr 10 19:11 UTC 2002 |
> Thanks, I will try Word 6 on them next time, if there is a next time.
> I wish people would learn to use Windows enough to be able to convert
> their files to ASCII.
Translation: I want other people to learn Windows so I don't have
to. ;)
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keesan
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response 19 of 269:
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Apr 10 20:04 UTC 2002 |
I would be delighted if nobody used WIndows, but if they insist on it they
should learn how to rename their files and convert them to something non-MS.
I will try using rename that way - did not know you could do it batch.
We are about to try two borrowed printer cables and the M3000 driver.
We can order inkjet ink for $30/pint, which is 12 refills for a 40ml cartridge
(or 24 for a 20 ml, or about 100 for a 4 ml). Useful when the fax paper funs
out but people keep giving us more of it.
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blaise
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response 20 of 269:
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Apr 11 14:00 UTC 2002 |
While you can use rename batch, the particular example I gave was intended
to match just one file (which is why the replacement doesn't have any
wildcards). An example of using rename in a batch mode would be "rename *.lst
*.txt" which would rename any files with an extension of lst to have an
extension of txt instead.
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keesan
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response 21 of 269:
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Apr 11 14:50 UTC 2002 |
How would the rename program deal with file 1.txt and file21.txt if I told
it rename file?1.txt file1.txt? Would it not have to rename two different
files to the same name?
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jep
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response 22 of 269:
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Apr 11 16:09 UTC 2002 |
re #21: It will return "Duplicate file name or file in use" if there is
a conflict for file names. You would be attempting to give both files
the same name, which would be a conflict.
It's not too easy to make file names containing spaces in MS-DOS or the
Windows command prompt. I found I could do it, from the Windows 98
command prompt anyway, by enclosing that part of the file name in
quotes, for example:
rename abc.txt "a c".txt
You could use this in reverse, too, to rename one file. For example:
rename "file 1".txt 1file.txt
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keesan
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response 23 of 269:
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Apr 11 19:16 UTC 2002 |
I just tried the first of these with MS DOS 6.22.
Parameter format not correct - "a
Maybe Windows DOS's can handle this but mine cannot.
Hans in Sweden informed me that 'port already in use' means that the printer
will work only with Windows. Somewhere there is a driver only 3M long that
should work with the model 3000 but the link to it at driverguide is broken.
We will try the 8M model on the 3000 and maybe also on the 3500.
The 3000 claims to also work with Win31 but I could not find a driver.
How would one go about making a DOS driver for these printers?
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aruba
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response 24 of 269:
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Apr 11 20:12 UTC 2002 |
What do you mean by a DOS driver, Sindi? The idea of having drivers for
printers built into the operating system is a difference between DOS and
Windows.
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