a query from a newbie

[Nicholas Barnett <ni...@onetel.com>]

Hi,

Just bought a new computer (after 11 years with a mac mini). It's  
another mac, the air book or is it a book air, anyway, I'm trying to  
make do without Microsoftware, WORD and EXCEL, and I've gone and  
downloaded Apache's offering.

I've got the __OpenOffice.org Writer for Microsoft Word users:__ to  
help me on my way, but I'm disappointed to find no mention of ^ in it.

WORD uses ^ to code unprintable marks like ^l, linefeed, ^t tab, ^p  
paragraph and so on.

Why not add a table with all the ^ codes and what to do in Writer to  
get the same effect? There must be a way to change a ^l to a ^p or  
vice versa, or change all ^ps to ^p^ps.

I don't know who I'm writing to, but I did do (what in the 1970s was  
called) Tech Lit or Tech Doc for a while, as my job, and I quite  
enjoyed it, but I did get paid. I am quite surprised that Apache  
Openstuff is free. (I think Office is wildly overpriced, by the same  
token, and that it says something rather discouraging about people,  
and "the market" that the keep going back in droves to microsoft,  
rather than going to Apache or a number of other offerings. Perhaps if  
you charged $25 for each component, you'd have even more people taking  
it! Not that I really know what I'm talking about . . . I'm just  
grateful you're there, and can either help with my ^ codes or at least  
tell me who I ought to be asking, if not you.

Yours sincerely
Nicholas Barnett

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Re: a query from a newbie

[James Plante <ji...@me.com>]

Reply inline below: 

> On Feb 3, 2016, at 3:59 PM, Nicholas Barnett <ni...@onetel.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Just bought a new computer (after 11 years with a mac mini). It's another mac, the air book or is it a book air, anyway, I'm trying to make do without Microsoftware, WORD and EXCEL, and I've gone and downloaded Apache's offering.
> 
> I've got the __OpenOffice.org Writer for Microsoft Word users:__ to help me on my way, but I'm disappointed to find no mention of ^ in it.
> 
> WORD uses ^ to code unprintable marks like ^l, linefeed, ^t tab, ^p paragraph and so on.
These are used only in Find and Replace… with regular expressions selected in the Find and Replace dialogue. The ones you mentioned are ^l = \n; ^t = \t; and ^p = $. The beginning of a line is ^; the end of a paragraph is $. That \n is a newline character, and searching for $ won’t find it. Find empty paragraphs with ^$. 
> 
> Why not add a table with all the ^ codes and what to do in Writer to get the same effect? There must be a way to change a ^l to a ^p or vice versa, or change all ^ps to ^p^ps.
There already is one. You’ll find it by searching Google for “Regular Expressions in OpenOffice.” You’ll want to hunt that down, because OOo has a few differences. 
> 
> I don't know who I'm writing to, but I did do (what in the 1970s was called) Tech Lit or Tech Doc for a while, as my job, and I quite enjoyed it, but I did get paid. I am quite surprised that Apache Openstuff is free. (I think Office is wildly overpriced, by the same token, and that it says something rather discouraging about people, and "the market" that the keep going back in droves to microsoft, rather than going to Apache or a number of other offerings. Perhaps if you charged $25 for each component, you'd have even more people taking it! Not that I really know what I'm talking about . . . I'm just grateful you're there, and can either help with my ^ codes or at least tell me who I ought to be asking, if not you.
> 
> Yours sincerely
> Nicholas Barnett
> 
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Re: a query from a newbie

[Brian Barker <b....@btinternet.com>]

At 21:59 03/02/2016 +0000, Nicholas Barnett wrote:
>Just bought a new computer ... . It's another mac, ...
>I've got the __OpenOffice.org Writer for Microsoft Word users:__ to 
>help me on my way, but I'm disappointed to find no mention of ^ in it.

I can't speak to why this is or isn't done ...

>WORD uses ^ to code unprintable marks like ^l, linefeed, ^t tab, ^p 
>paragraph and so on. Why not add a table with all the ^ codes and 
>what to do in Writer to get the same effect? There must be a way to 
>change a ^l to a ^p or vice versa, or change all ^ps to ^p^ps.

The way that things such as this are done in Writer is often 
different from how it is done in Microsoft Word, so there is often no 
direct equivalent to such tokens. Incidentally, you could easily get 
the same information from a list provided by Microsoft showing the 
equivalent in Word to Writer's techniques; do they publish one? Oh dear!

>I don't know who I'm writing to, ...

As its name ("Users") suggests, this mailing list is composed mainly 
of users of OpenOffice - just like you and me.

>I'm just grateful you're there, and can either help with my ^ codes ...

With a text (Writer) document open, go to Help | OpenOffice Help (or 
click the OpenOffice Help button in the Standard toolbar or press 
F1). Click the index tab and type "regular" (no quotes) as the 
"Search term". This will find "regular expressions"; click on the 
"list of" sub-entry to display the complete list. You will need to 
experiment with the tokens listed there in order to get used to how 
to achieve the searches you need. To use these tokens, click More 
Options in the Find & Replace dialogue and ensure that "Regular 
expressions" is ticked.

>... change a ^l to a ^p ...

Search for \n and replace with \n . Note that this token means 
different things in the two contexts: a line break in the first and a 
paragraph break in the second.

>... or vice versa, ...

This is rather complicated in Writer, but it can be done:
o Enter a line break into your text.
o Select the line break itself.
o Copy the line break (Ctrl+C).
o Go to Find & Replace.
o Enter $ in the "Search for" box and click Find All. All instances 
of paragraph breaks will be selected and highlighted.
o Paste (Ctrl+V). The line break in the clipboard will be pasted over 
each paragraph break.
Clever, eh?

But you are using a Mac, so there may be a simpler way. With the 
cursor in the "Replace with" box, you can use Character Viewer to 
identify and select the line feed character (000A) and click the 
Insert button; in the "Replace with" box, this will create line 
breaks in your document.

>... change all ^ps to ^p^ps.

Aaargh! May I suggest that you should *never* want to do this? This 
will create empty paragraphs between each of your real paragraphs, 
which is old-fashioned typewriter thinking. Word processor do not 
print on lined paper and you should get away from the concept of 
"lines" on your printed output. Instead, you create vertical spacing 
between paragraphs using the "Above paragraph" and "Below paragraph" 
settings on the Indents & Spacing tab of the Paragraph formatting 
dialogue or - better still - the Paragraph Style formatting dialogue. 
(You will want to learn about and use styles in order to use 
OpenOffice effectively.)

In fact, you can make this change by searching for $ and replacing 
with \n\n - but please don't ever do this!

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker


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Re: a query from a newbie

[Julian Thomas <jt...@jt-mj.net>]

> On Feb 3, 2016, at 16:59, Nicholas Barnett <ni...@onetel.com> wrote:
> 
> WORD uses ^ to code unprintable marks like ^l, linefeed, ^t tab, ^p paragraph and so on.
> 
> Why not add a table with all the ^ codes and what to do in Writer to get the same effect? There must be a way to change a ^l to a ^p or vice versa, or change all ^ps to ^p^ps.


> I've got the __OpenOffice.org Writer for Microsoft Word users:__ to help me on my way, but I'm disappointed to find no mention of ^ in it.
> 
> WORD uses ^ to code unprintable marks like ^l, linefeed, ^t tab, ^p paragraph and so on.
> 
> Why not add a table with all the ^ codes and what to do in Writer to get the same effect? There must be a way to change a ^l to a ^p or vice versa, or change all ^ps to ^p^ps.
> 
Usually these things are either inserted using the Insert - Formatting mark facility from the menubar, or encoded using the \n etc. codes.  For a starter, in a document, open Find and Replace from the edit menu [or using Cmd-F], click on the help, and scroll down to regular expressions.

 —
jt - jt@jt-mj.net

With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea. It is hard to be sure where they are going to land, and it could be dangerous sitting under them as they fly overhead. -Request for Comments: 1925 IOOF





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