We don't need no stinking page numbers!!!!!!!!!

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este.el.paz
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Re: We don't need no stinking page numbers!!!!!!!!!

Post by este.el.paz »

Danzac:

Thanks for jumping back in and the clarifications on Google Docs & the various workflows that you use to do that. Agree with Janet that export from Mellel should be to RTF . . . .

Hendrix--hope you saw "treasure of the sierra madre" at least once in your life . . . .

eep
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Re: We don't need no stinking page numbers!!!!!!!!!

Post by Hendrix »

hope you saw "treasure of the sierra madre" at least once in your life
I thought those were "badges". ¿O eres de los Federales? :D
Manuel Aguilar Hendrickson
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Universitat de Barcelona
08035 Barcelona (Spain)
manuel.aguilar.hendrickson@ub.edu
este.el.paz
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Re: We don't need no stinking page numbers!!!!!!!!!

Post by este.el.paz »

H:

What's funny is that my Redlex email notification is to Gmail, and in the ads off to the right side are listings for ll kinds of Badge services . . . . : - )

eep
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Re: We don't need no stinking page numbers!!!!!!!!!

Post by Ori Redler »

este.el.paz wrote:Folks:

OK, thanks for the replies. The only way I can be more specific is to add that the page numbers are in the header & to say that, correct, I'm using TextEdit to open them to check for missing parts and pieces, and in TE the page numbers don't show.
If I had a penny for every time someone opened an RTF or Word format exported file in TextEdit and found that the footers, headers, footnotes and endnotes disappear I would be at least 24 pennies richer.

Simply put -- Mellel cannot teach TextEdit (or any other application) to do what they cannot do.
Ori Redler from RedleX
este.el.paz
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Re: We don't need no stinking page numbers!!!!!!!!!

Post by este.el.paz »

Ori:

Thanks for the post . . . . I think we've had this conversation before, but the problem of dealing with the world of WORD remains and how do we do that? Hopefully you can look at Janet's post above where she outlines the steps she uses when she exports to RTF and maybe it might be included in future editions of the Guide. If it's stated up front that TE or RTF can't understand what mellel is saying and here's some things to work around, then the user is less in the dark . . . alone. They would have companionship and guidance. : - )

eep
DanZac
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Re: We don't need no stinking page numbers!!!!!!!!!

Post by DanZac »

Am I not correct that it is now not even an option to export to .doc from Mellel? Several items in this thread make it sound like export to RTf and export to DOC are two different things.

It is my understanding that exporting to .doc is exactly the same as exporting to RTF except Mellel puts the .doc extension on it.

Just another note too— I only use google docs if I have to collaborate. If someone just has to read my stuff, PDF is the drug of choice. If google docs ever gets to the point of being able to annotate PDFs (which is in the works I think) that will definitely be my choice.

btw, textflow looks pretty sleak, but not sure it is that different from having multiple collaborators on google docs.
este.el.paz
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Re: We don't need no stinking page numbers!!!!!!!!!

Post by este.el.paz »

Danzac:

Others may have a better understanding of the why that there is a difference in the export to RTF vs DOC from Mellel. I did find out a few years back that the export to DOC lost more features than going to RTF. And, it was suggested then, as Janet did recently, that we CAN manually change the extension to .doc -- if needed. She said that now she only does that when a problem on the other end shows up--RTF is the preferred export option--less parts and pieces are lost when using RTF.

And right PDF keeps everything pretty neat and tidy.

Took a look at TextFlow, looks interesting, I don't do enough collaboration to warrant any expense in that area--Mellel is very good, far beyond my actual capabilities, within its own world--just a few niggling issues when trying to work outside that world--even if the world is falling behind in the workflow excellence category in their choice for WORD--that's what they are doing . . . .

eep
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Re: We don't need no stinking page numbers!!!!!!!!!

Post by rpcameron »

Exporting to .DOC format (Word) and RTF are two completely different things. Mellel uses OS X's native Word support (.DOC) when exporting, so the Word features supported in the Word export are dependent upon the version of OS X that you are using. Conversely, the RTF export is consistent across all versions of OS X, since Mellel uses its own RTF engine to import/export in this format. While it is true that the current version of Word's binary format (.DOC) and RTF are feature complete, other programs are usually behind in supporting them, and do so differently—.DOC is a binary format, while RTF is a text–based format.

Because of the differences in the engines and formats, Mellel's (and other programs') export/import options will differ between the formats, and with the amount of support offered in them.
— Robert Cameron
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Re: I don’t like multiple exclamation marks!

Post by Mart°n »

rpcameron wrote:Exporting to .DOC format (Word) and RTF are two completely different things.
That’s not true anymore. Mellel have used the OS X .doc exporter in older versions but since over a year ago, the Redlers changed this behavior as the .RTF exporter became better than the .DOC exporter. (I think that was introduced with Mellel 2.2 but I’m not sure anymore).

So DanZac is completely right with his last post:
DanZac wrote: It is my understanding that exporting to .doc is exactly the same as exporting to RTF except Mellel puts the .doc extension on it.
That’s what Mellel actually does. If you export as .RTF, a .rtf-document will be written with the exact file extension (.RTF). If you export as .DOC also a .RTF will be written but the file extension will be renamed to .DOC. As word imports the .DOC renamed RTF documents without a problem, is only a cosmetic thing for some Windows users who don’t know what to do with an .RTF document otherwise.

The current Mellel guide tells the old story and is not right on this detail. Also, this is only true if you export a file, Mellel still relies on OS X if you import a Word document.
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Re: I don’t like multiple exclamation marks!

Post by rpcameron »

Mart°n wrote:
rpcameron wrote:Exporting to .DOC format (Word) and RTF are two completely different things.
That’s not true anymore. Mellel have used the OS X .doc exporter in older versions but since over a year ago, the Redlers changed this behavior as the .RTF exporter became better than the .DOC exporter. (I think that was introduced with Mellel 2.2 but I’m not sure anymore).
My apologies, I did not realize that this had become the case. While it's good for consistency across versions of OS X, I must say I'm surprised to learn this is the case. Why does Mellel even feature "Word format" export, if it is only RTF with a .DOC extension?! Since this is now the case, I feel that the "Word export" feature should be removed, since it is completely redundant, misleading and inaccurate.

(Yes, I know Word treats them the same, but it's not really a "Word format" export, though, is it ...)
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Re: I don’t like multiple exclamation marks!

Post by jannuss »

rpcameron wrote: Why does Mellel even feature "Word format" export, if it is only RTF with a .DOC extension?!
I guess the Redlers (correctly) feared that users would see the "WORD" export missing and assume they could no longer exchange info with WORD users.

Janet
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Re: I don’t like multiple exclamation marks!

Post by DanZac »

jannuss wrote:
rpcameron wrote: Why does Mellel even feature "Word format" export, if it is only RTF with a .DOC extension?!
I guess the Redlers (correctly) feared that users would see the "WORD" export missing and assume they could no longer exchange info with WORD users.
Exactly, and that's why it should stay in the export that way I think.
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Re: We don't need no stinking page numbers!!!!!!!!!

Post by Hans-Reinhard Koch »

Hi eep,
You wrote
...When you click on an RTF, TE opens it. It actually never dawned on me to try opening a file that I just exported from Mellel, with Mellel...
Your .rtf files open with TE upon double-clicking, because TE it set as the default application for this kind of file on your MAC. You can change the default application for rtf files (or any other kind of file), by
1) select an .rtf file in the finder and select menu "File > Get info" (or press "command-I")
2) the file info dialog box opens with the option "Open with:" and "TextEdit" shows up in the pop-up menu below.
3) click on the pop-up menu (It can take a while until the pop-up becomes enabled, if you have many apps on your MAC). The pop-up opens and you get a list of all programs that can open .rtf files. Select the application, you want to open the .rtf with.
4) Now the button "Change all" becomes enabled. If you click the button, all .rtf files will be opened by the newly selected default application for .rtf files
Good luck!
Hans-Reinhard
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este.el.paz
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Re: We don't need no stinking page numbers!!!!!!!!!

Post by este.el.paz »

Hans-R:

First thanks for changing the subject line back to the original title . . . threadjackers should not change or make comment to/on the subject line . . . they should start their own thread to beef about someone else's choice of punctuation usage. : - )))))) See, threadjacking guys, multiple use of parentheses . . . .

Anyway, back to the topic of the moment, thanks for your info, I am aware of the mthod to change default application, but thanks, a little bit down stream, but thanks for jumping in with constructive comment. As I said it didn't dawn on me the fact that we could open an RTF with Mellel, since we would first have to export the file to get it into RTF mode; we can't????? (multiple question mark usage for indication of deep questioning) just change the extension to RTF. If we could do that easily, then sure it would make sense to re-open with Mellel . . . . Otherwise, I don't spend too much time now with RTF files and I have no real beef with TE; most of my writing is in Mellel, AND, every few months I have to deal with getting a .mellel file into the format that WORD users can open. Otherwise, I would be playing with Mr Mel all of the time.

eep
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Re: We don't need no stinking page numbers!!!!!!!!!

Post by jannuss »

este.el.paz wrote:we would first have to export the file to get it into RTF mode; we can't????? (multiple question mark usage for indication of deep questioning) just change the extension to RTF.
eep, I suspect you haven't totally understood the process of creating an rtf version of a file.

Mellel, like 99% of the world's applications works in its own proprietary format. (In Mellel's case this happens to be an XML-based format.)
And
like 99% of the world's applications offers ways to interface with other applications via translation to some standard format (in our case, rtf).

To change the extension of a Mellel document from "mellel" to "rtf" would make as much sense as changing the extension of a WORD document from "doc" to "jpg" of an EXCEL spreadsheet from "xls" to "txt"
We're talking apples and oranges here.

Your confusion may be based, in part, on how today's operating systems use file extensions.
The main function of the extension today is to signal the operating system which application to launch when the file is selected.
-- xls launches EXCEL (or some clone), doc launches WORD (or some clone), mellel launches Mellel, etc.
Once launched, many applications ignore the extension and check the file themselves to see what format it is written in. WORD, for example discovers that a file is in doc format or rtf format only after the file is open.

Thus we say that Mellel opens a "mellel" file and imports an "rtf" file.

Janet
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