Planning ahead:Filters

Subject: Planning ahead:Filters
From: John Glenn <sfarmh1 -at- SCFN -dot- THPL -dot- LIB -dot- FL -dot- US>
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 12:41:45 -0400

There has been a fair amount of discussion
lately on how to get File ZYX from Program A
into Program B.

Much of the writing concerns costly filters.
That's fine except for 2 problems: cost and the
by-definition function of a FILTER. OK, there
are times when only filters can do the job;
that's why I keep'em handy. But ...

Formatted text files: almost all non-Unix word
processors can import formatted Rich Text Format
(RTF) files.

Graphic files: there are 4 ^transportable^ for-
mats. EPS and CGM (vector), TIFF and JPG/JPEG
(bitmap) formats load into most word processor
and page comp apps. Save the original pix in its
native format and load the transportable format.

Page comp: Frame into MIF or format-less ascii;
Interleaf into easily edited Interleaf ASCII
(coded ascii). Unix Frame and Interleaf have
filters for the other (as part of the ^basic^
app ?? ), but neither filters the other's pro-
prietary format. MIF and Leaf ASCII are valuable
even when moving from version-to-version of the
same product. (Penalty: much bigger file size.)
To its credit, Leaf ASCII is easily edited in a
text editor/word processor.

Filters are a costly, but with a little plan-
ning, some of the pain can be eliminated.


john glenn <sfarmh1 -at- scfn -dot- thpl -dot- lib -dot- fl -dot- us>
====================================================
...do not make a statement that cannot be easily
understood on the grounds that it will be understood
eventually. (Hillel)

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