RTF to HTML: Two Questions

barrytraver · **Posted:** Thu Jul 07, 2011 3:38 am

I wrote the following Windows program to convert simple RTF to HTML:

Dim Result As Boolean
Dim HTMLType As New FileType
Dim RTFType As New FileType
Dim File1 As FolderItem
Dim Count, I As Integer
Dim AllPiecesOfPage, PieceOfPage As String
Dim Piece, Temp, WholeWebPage As String
Dim SR as StyleRun

RTFType.Name = "RTF Files"
RTFType.Extensions = "rtf"
File1 = GetOpenFolderItem ( RTFType )
If File1  <> Nil Then
  Result = TextArea1.Open ( File1 )
End If

Count = TextArea1.StyledText.StyleRunCount
AllPiecesOfPage = ""

For I = 0 to Count - 1
  
  SR = TextArea1.StyledText.StyleRun( I )
  PieceOfPage = SR.Text
  
  If SR.Bold = True Then
    PieceOfPage = "<b>" + PieceOfPage + "</b>"
  End If
  
  If SR.Italic = True Then
    PieceOfPage = "<i>" + PieceOfPage + "</i>"
  End If
  
  If SR.Underline = True Then
    PieceOfPage = "<u>" + PieceOfPage + "</u>"
  End If
  
  PieceOfPage = ReplaceAll (PieceOfPage, Chr ( 13 ) + Chr ( 13 ), "<p>" )
  
  PieceOfPage = ReplaceAll (PieceOfPage, Chr ( 13 ), "<br />" )
  
  Piece = "<span style=" + Chr ( 34 ) + "font-family: " + SR.Font _
    + ";  font-size: " + Str ( Floor ( .5 * SR.Size ) ) + "pt; color: " + Mid ( Str ( SR.textcolor ), 3 ) _
    + ";" + Chr ( 34 ) + ">" + PieceOfPage + "</span>"
  
  AllPiecesOfPage =  AllPiecesOfPage + Piece
  
Next I

WholeWebPage = "<html>" + EndOfLine +  "<body style=""font-size: 30pt;>"
WholeWebPage = WholeWebPage + AllPiecesOfPage + EndOfLine
WholeWebPage = WholeWebPage + "</body>" + EndOfLine + "</html>" + EndOfLine

TextArea1.Text = WholeWebPage
TextArea1.SelStart = 0
TextArea1.SelLength = Len ( TextArea1.Text )
TextArea1.SelTextSize = 30
TextArea1.SelLength = 0

HTMLType.Name = "HTML files"
HTMLType.Extensions = ".html; .htm"
File1 = GetSaveFolderItem(HTMLType, "")
If File1  <> Nil Then
  Result = TextArea1.Save ( File1, False )
End If

It's not pretty, but it seems to work.

Question #1: Should I be using "span" or "div" or something more complicated than either? (Both "span" and "div" appear to work, but that doesn't necessarily mean that either works all the time.)

Question #2: Do you notice any (other?) non-obvious errors in the code (or at least non-obvious to me)?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Barry Traver

P.S. I'm posting this in the Windows area because I have an idea that the lines containing "13" may not work on the Mac and/or with Linux.

timhare · **Posted:** Thu Jul 07, 2011 3:54 am

You should use <span> instead of <div>. <div> is a block oriented tag, and is a superset of <p>. <span> is in-line, within a <p> and a <div>.

TextArea uses chr(13) on all platforms, regardless of each platform's EndOfLine.

barrytraver · **Posted:** Thu Jul 07, 2011 4:24 am

timhare wrote:

You should use <span> instead of <div>. <div> is a block oriented tag, and is a superset of <p>. <span> is in-line, within a <p> and a <div>.

Thanks for the comment.

timhare wrote:

TextArea uses chr(13) on all platforms, regardless of each platform's EndOfLine.

Thanks again.

If I understand what you're saying, then Windows seems not to be the only platform where the platfom's normal EndOfLine is different from the platform's EndOfline for a TextArea. Interesting!

Another question....

Assume the following code:

Dim S1 As String
S1 = TextArea1.Text

Do I remember correctly that for Windows end-of-line is one-character in TextArea1 -- i.e., Chr ( 13 ) -- but is now automatically converted to a normal Windows end-of-line of two characters -- i.e., Chr ( 13 ) + Chr ( 10 ) -- in S1 in the preceding code snippet?

Barry Traver

timhare · **Posted:** Thu Jul 07, 2011 11:31 am

No, the end of line character remains a single chr(13). There is no automatic conversion for that simple assignment. You would have to code it as

s1 = ReplaceLineEndings(Textarea1.Text, EndOfLine)

Tim

barrytraver · **Posted:** Fri Jul 08, 2011 2:31 pm

Tim,

You're absolutely correct. I had it backwards. Let's see if I can get it right this time.

What does take place is not that S1 automatically adds Chr (10) but that TextArea1.Text automatically loses Chr (10). (I'm talking about Windows, of course.)

Example #1:

S1 = Chr ( 65 ) + Chr ( 13 ) + Chr ( 10 )
MsgBox Str ( Len ( S1 ) )
TextArea1.Text = S1
MsgBox Str ( Len ( TextArea1.Text ) )

Example #2:

TextArea1.Text = Chr ( 65 ) + Chr ( 13 ) + Chr ( 10 )
S1 = TextArea1.Text
MsgBox Str ( Len ( S1 ) )
TextArea1.Text = S1
MsgBox Str ( Len ( TextArea1.Text ) )
S1 = TextArea1.Text
MsgBox Str ( Len ( TextArea1.Text ) )

Also, ReplaceLineEndings can be a bit tricky at times.

No surprises with this:

S1 = Chr ( 65 ) + Chr ( 13 )
S1 = ReplaceLineEndings(S1, EndOfLine.Windows)
MsgBox Str ( Len ( S1 ) )

But try this:

TextArea1 = Chr ( 65 ) + Chr ( 13 )
TextArea1.Text = ReplaceLineEndings(TextArea1.Text, EndOfLine.Windows)
MsgBox Str ( Len ( TextArea1.Text ) )

Barry Traver

P.D. I think I've got it right this time, but please let me know if I didn't.

timhare · **Posted:** Fri Jul 08, 2011 2:50 pm

What's surprising about that example? And the "tricky" part is not ReplaceLineEndings, but assigning a string to TextArea1.Text. ReplaceLineEndings returns a string with a trailing chr(10). TextArea1 dutifully removes it.

barrytraver · **Posted:** Fri Jul 08, 2011 8:51 pm

timhare wrote:

What's surprising about that example? And the "tricky" part is not ReplaceLineEndings, but assigning a string to TextArea1.Text. ReplaceLineEndings returns a string with a trailing chr(10). TextArea1 dutifully removes it.

What's surprising to me as a non-professional is that TextArea1.Text is _exactly_ the same both before and after the following line:

TextArea1.Text = ReplaceLineEndings(TextArea1.Text, EndOfLine.Windows)

That is, one might expect from the code that a one-character line ending is being replaced by a two-character line ending throughout the text. Instead, TextArea1.Text ends up unchanged. (EndOfLine.Windows is two characters long, not the one-character line ending it started out with.)

Question: does that line of code even make sense? Is it even valid? After all, Chr ( 13 ) is supposedly being replaced by Chr ( 13 ) + Chr ( 10 ), and that doesn't seem to happen, right?

Barry Traver

timhare · **Posted:** Sat Jul 09, 2011 2:24 am

Yes, it does happen. ReplaceLineEndings puts in a 2-character end of line. TextArea1 immediately takes it right back out. As you noted previously, when you assign a string to TextArea.Text, it replaces the normal line endings with chr(13), but when you take the string back out, the line endings remain a single chr(13). Try to imagine the intermediate results:

dim s as string
TextArea1.Text = chr(65) + chr(13)
s = ReplaceLineEndings(TextArea1.Text, EndOfLine.Windows)
msgbox str(len(s))
TextArea1.Text = s
msgbox str(len(TextArea1.Text))

The first msgbox will be "3", the second will be "2".

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RTF to HTML: Two Questions