🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <richard.727862762@dutepp13> Richard.Kooijman@dnpap.et.tudelft.nl (Richard Kooijman) writes:
>les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) writes:
>
>>Wordperfect should work.  If you are creating the file from scratch you
>>can build tables with the column widths you want, then move around in
>>it like a spreadsheet.  You can also get the spacing you want with
>>tab settings and/or column modes, where it might be easier to do
>>moves of arbitrary rectangles.

>Now WordPerfect doesn't really output ASCII, now does it?

Sure, if you hit <ctl-F5> (dos text) and save.  You do have to be
careful not to save to the same filename as you exit from WP
(it will be remembered as the default choice).

>Perhaps by using a hack: printing through a stripped down printer
>driver with only ASCII characters and without control codes.

That works too, and either method can be automated easily with
a macro.  Of course you lose the concept of tables, tabstops, column
setups, etc., in the ASCII copy, so if you anticipate additional editing
you will also want to save a copy in native WP format under a different
filename.

>But there are better editors that are easier to use than by using this setup.
>What about Brief, Epsilon, BOXER (shareware, but I am not sure it can 
>arbitrary large files), BINGO (also shareware), Elvis (vi clone for PC,
>very good, free), VIM (vi clone, very good, for PC, also free).

"Better" depends on what you like and what you really need to do.  If
you need to work in tables, you probably won't find anything better
than Wordperfect, especially if you need to import data from a
spreadsheet into a document in table format, since that's a built-in
operation.   Elvis is the only one of the editors mentioned above
that I've used and I'm sure it's no match for WP 5.1 for anything
resembling columnar output.  If you need to output "pretty" hard
copy (i.e. with proportional fonts and borders around your tables)
as well as exporting ASCII, you'll quickly learn to appreciate the
high end wordprocessors.

Les Mikesell
  les@chinet.chi.il.us