Subject: PWG> Re: Word doc --> IETF formatted text

From: Tom Hastings <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 1996 11:14:15 PST

Randy,

Scott's IPP I-D .txt file did have some long lines in it too.  
I never got a chance to see what caused them.  Scott did set his lines 
to less than 6 inches.  But I didn't think that was necessary.  
The generic text driver seems to not output trailing blanks on lines 
(WORD SAVE AS text does output trailing blank lines which cause files 
to exceed 72 characters, but trailing blank lines are easy to remove.).

Make sure that the table of contents doesn't have leader so that
overstriking doesn't happen with just a CR.

See if this tool helps you locate the long lines.

I've put up two tools, courtesy of Ira McDonald, to help make sure
that our .txt file meet IETF requirements:

  ftp://pwg.org/pub/pwg/tools/

-rw-r--r--   1 pwg      pwg        27376 Dec  2 18:58 cscan.exe
-rw-r--r--   1 pwg      pwg        26256 Dec  2 19:03 maxln.exe
-rw-r--r--   1 pwg      pwg         1089 Dec  2 19:04 readme-maxln-cscan.txt

Here is the contents of the readme file:

Files: maxln.txt and cscan.txt readme files

In order to be able to produc IETF plain text files, I've contributed two
tools, courtesy of Ira McDonald, for checking the results of producing
plain text files according to IETF rules:  

  - 72-char max line length
  - simple ASCII graphics only, plus CRLF and FF

The two tools are maxln and cscan.

   ftp://pub/pwg/tools/maxln.exe
   ftp://pub/pwg/tools/cscan.exe

'maxln.exe' is a DOS utlity that searches for long lines
(default is 72 characters).

'cscan.exe' is a DOS utlility that counts the number of 
characters of each type in the file:  DOS print, control, 
graphic char scanning utility

These are both 16-bit MS-DOS executables.  To learn their command line
switches, execute them without parameters - they each print a program
synopsis with an example.

For example, to search for lines LONGER than 72 columns in prtmib,
and list EACH overlength line number, use the following command line:

        maxln -72 -v prtmib.txt >prtmib.max

(Notice the output redirection used above).

Tom Hastings

At 09:30 12/02/96 PST, Randy Turner wrote:
>Hi guys,
>
>I received a comment from Cynthia Clark on my internet draft
>submission saying that one of the drawings (and some other text)
>exceeded 72 columns. I reformatted the document using the 
>directions that Tom included in a previous message and I still
>did not get quite the results I think Cynthia is looking for.
>
>I have put the document up on the FTP server in Word 2.0 format:
>
>ftp://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/snmpmib/internet-drafts/mib-120296.doc
>
>I reformatted the entire document into 10 point font via Tom's
>instructions, and I also created a custom paragraph style called
>"IETF" which we can quickly edit and reformat the entire document
>style easily. I just haven't found the correct combination of
>attributes (page setup, paragraph style) that comes out just right
>when I print to file using "generic/text printer".
>
>Since you guys seem to have the conversion process down, any
>pointers or conversion help would be appreciated.
>
>Thanks
>
>Randy
>
>-- 
>Randy Turner
>Network Architect
>Sharp Laboratories of America
>[email-masked]
>
>