Importing Text

In Ventura 5 and earlier versions, imported text lived in the native word processor format. In Ventura 7 the import process imported word processor files directly into Ventura. In V8, the word processor format is converted RTF and the RTF is imported into Ventura. Ventura 8 will directly import only 4 formats: ASCII, ASCII 8 bit, ANSI, and RTF. Internally, the text is kept in RTF format with Ventura markup for functions not supported by RTF.

The filters that are used in the import/conversion process come from Word Perfect. Word Perfect may be a Corel application, but it is a word processor, not a publishing application. The requirements of a word processor for an import filter are not always the same as the requirements of a publishing application where the text is almost certain to be reformatted. In the case of Ventura 8, the Word Perfect filters are very unsuitable for the task they are asked to perform.

The V8 filters that convert from the word processor formats to RTF is a bit aggressive in retaining attributes applied in word processors. A much cleaner import can be achieved by saving the file from Word as RTF and importing the RTF file into V8.

Most word processors today can save a file as RTF, but some write cleaner RTF than others. For import into Ventura 8, Microsoft Word seems to write the cleanest RTF.

When doing this, due to the way saves as RTF, any paragraph using the Normal style will have all of the attributes saved as paragraph attributes rather than as a style. The attributes will be retained in V8 as overrides. So for this to work, you must not use the Normal style in Word. Instead, go to the Word Style Gallery and apply the Body Text style to all paragraphs. Next, Select all and press CTRL-Q to remove all paragraph level formatting. Then save as RTF.

When text is imported into V8, there are two settings that are relevant. In Options\Save, check Create tags from overrides. In the import DB, check Ignore styles. This will keep V8 from creating extra tags from the styles applied in Word. Text attributes applied to an entire paragraph are seen as overrides and the recommended settings results in these being ignored.

If anything slips through, you can usually detect it in Copy Editor and use Find and Replace to correct it.

An alternate method is to use a Ventura script to remove the unwanted elements from RTF files. One such script is Import Text Plus written by John Faunce.

Importing Tables

Tables are a problem because they can't be seen in Copy Edit. For tables, use the procedure above but use a Table Text tag instead of Body Text (if one does not exist in the Gallery, create one). Tables coming in via RTF (which means any word processor table) will have fixed width columns and table rules will be applied on a cell-by-cell basis with all table rules set to hidden. This can make reformatting the table difficult and reformatting will be necessary if the width of the table in the word processor is different from the width of the page or frame in Ventura. You will basically have to reformat the table by setting all of the column widths to proportional and using on of the AutoFormat presets to restore the table rule settings.

An alternate method is to select the table in the word processor, then copy to the clipboard and Paste Special:Table in Ventura. This will produce a clean, unformatted table with data intact. The same procedure can be used for regular text as well, but if the text contains footnotes or endnotes, they will be lost.

Once you have your text in V8, if you are working with external files, use ASCII or ANSI format. These are basically trouble-free. RTF works well in some instances, but can be troublesome in others. It all depends on what you are trying to preserve in RTF and how you are trying to preserve it. The RTF Export on Save options can be set to RTF Markup, Ventura Markup, or in some cases, both. Using RTF Markup can result in the same problems the next time the VP is opened as you have when you initially import an RTF file. This is especially true of tables. Frame anchors, index markers, Xrefs, etc. will also be lost if Ventura markup is not used. If the goal is a seamless, transfer of formatting back and forth between Ventura and the word processor, we are not there yet. Because VP markup has to be used in any case, I find it more convenient to use it in all cases and export as ANSI or ASCII.