Importation of different text formats
By Bob Stephen
I'm importing relatively complex text including font changes colour changes and a table with formatting.
Conclusions:
The best import is ODT followed by DOC. PDF is very poor as is TXT, both lose the table information (of course TXT never had it in the first place !). All lose most of their text formatting.
ODT Import:
(We cannot obviously show the original ODT text and table. So the wording use there will give some idea of the original and what has happened). Obviously text format options are reduced and color has been stripped out, etc etc.)
This is test text in Times Roman 12 point
This is test text in Times Roman 14 point – bold red italic
Verdana indented one level, 14 point red
Andalus indented 2 levels, 14 point green
Andalus indented 3 levels, 14 point green bold italic underlined
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Four by two table |
Inserted directly under last indented text |
Columns do not move at all when text is typed into them, row height merely expands to accommodate text |
This is what you would expect and is normal table behaviour. |
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Default is text left justified and table border |
Border set to 4 point throughout |
Background colour set to green | |
DOC Import:
(We cannot obviously show the original ODT text and table. So the wording use there will give some idea of the original and what has happened). Obviously text format options are reduced and color has been stripped out, etc etc.)
This is test text in Times Roman 12 point
This is test text in Times Roman 14 point – bold red italic
Verdana indented one level, 14 point red
Andalus indented 2 levels, 14 point green
Andalus indented 3 levels, 14 point green bold italic underlined
Four by two table | Inserted directly under last indented text | Columns do not move at all when text is typed into them, row height merely expands to accommodate text | This is what you would expect and is normal table behaviour. |
Default is text left justified and table border
PDF import:
(We cannot obviously show the original ODT text and table. So the wording use there will give some idea of the original and what has happened). Obviously text format options are reduced and color has been stripped out, etc etc.)
This is test text in Times Roman 12 point This is test text in Times Roman 14 point – bold red italic Verdana indented one level, 14 point red Note: I'm truncating the display here of the PDF import as the results are quite hopeless. Everything is thrown away. |
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