[bksvol-discuss] My Adventure with Line Breaks
- From: Debby Franson <the.bee@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 15 May 2010 17:34:54 -0500
Hi everyone!
I know we know some of this, but it's background for what is new, and,
there are new members coming on the list, so, perhaps this might be useful
information for someone, new to volunteering or a veteran.
As we know, Roger used to scan with OpenBook's setting of "recognized
columns" turned off, which is not good for straight text, because there is
a line break or paragraph mark, (Are they the same thing") at the end of
each line in a paragraph.
He asked for any skilled people to help, because some proofreaders were
stumped by the problem or ended up with the problem still existing after
their hard work or someone's software dumped many hours of hard work.
I enjoy a challenge, so I thought I'd try to rescue Malcolm X from
languishing on the checkout list, since he had been there for some time.
I tried /na in Word's find box and hitting spacebar and lowercase a in the
find box and replace all, thinking that was the right command, and Word
made 0 replacements.
Since I wasn't sure what to do then, I started doing things the harder way,
by hand. I would hit the end key on each line to go to the end of it, then
Control Right arrowing, being careful not to accidently go to the next
paragraph, and, if I was unable to Control right arrow to the next word, I
would hit the delete key, then space to separate the two words the delete
key joined. I would read each paragraph too, because I always read every
word while proofing.
Lori C. graciously informed me that I had used the wrong command, and
should have used ^p in Word's find box and spacebar a repeating through the
alphabet as with the first command I had tried.
I tried the command Lori told me, and with the space a in the find box,
Word made 13,273 replacements. With the a replaced with each letter of the
alphabet, Word said it made one replacement.
AAAH!!! It was a good thing I was mucking around with a backup and not the
file I had been using to proofread from, which is a backup of the original
I downloaded, I had a's all over the place that were not wanted. I closed
Word to dump that file without saving. I can't imagine what I did wrong.
The discussion about Jarte we had on the list a short time ago sent me on a
word processor hunt again.
I found this one that is a word replacement and text editor called
Polyedit. If only it detected page breaks!!! It says it's lightweight,
and it feels like it to use it.
The thing that is really nice about it is I loaded Roger's Malcolm X book
into it because it has the line breaks. I'll give you a before and after
version of the same paragraph. The difference will be that there is a
command, Control-f8, I think that got rid of them. It's in the Conversion
menu, and it converts lines to paragraphs.
I invite you to do an end, then Control-Right arrow on at least one line in
each of the following paragraphs for comparison.
Paragraph versions:
Before:
The house Negro could afford to do that because he lived better
than the field Negro. He ate better, he dressed better, and he lived
in a better house. He lived right up next to his master -- in the attic
or the basement. He ate the same food his master ate and wore his
same clothes. And he could talk just like his master -- good diction.
And he loved his master more than his master loved himself. That's
why he didn't want his master hurt.
After
The house Negro could afford to do that because he lived better than the
field Negro. He ate better, he dressed better, and he lived in a better
house. He lived right up next to his master -- in the attic or the
basement. He ate the same food his master ate and wore his same clothes.
And he could talk just like his master -- good diction. And he loved his
master more than his master loved himself. That's why he didn't want his
master hurt.
Going line by line down each paragraph is different, with the second one
being a much smoother read.
Aside from the fact that I don't detect page breaks with Polyedit, the
other thing that isn't so good for a person with a screen reader is that if
I want to highlight something to copy or cut it, I get only silence as I am
highlighting rather than hearing the text spoken as it is being highlighted
as I do in Eudora, NotePad, WordPad, OpenBook or Word.
It has nice features though. You can
convert to upper or lower case, to title, to sentence, lines to paragraph
or paragraph to lines, and a few other things in the convert menu, and that
is the only one I have explored at any length. I have only been working
with this to evaluate it for a few minutes, so these are my first impressions.
If you would like to try this shareware word processor, you can go to:
http://www.polyedit.com/
to download a trial version. You can buy it on the site too, of course.
A single User License costs $27.95.
Even if I buy this to only use as a fixer for unwanted line breaks, it
would be worth it to me. One of the other books I'm proofing I think has a
line break problem. I am unfamiliar with the submitter, I think, but can't
remember who it is. I have a full queue of books I am proofing. I enjoy
variety.
Debby
--
mailto:<the.bee@xxxxxxxxxxx>
--
Enjoy what you have rather than desiring what you don't have. Just dreaming
about nice things is meaningless; it is like chasing the
wind.--Ecclesiastes 6:9 NLT
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