This version should be able to handle any filesize that the read command can handle. No text accumulation, it writes as it reads. I think this is pretty solid; I'll stop now. try set head to "{\\rtf1\\ansi\\ansicpg1252\\cocoartf949\\cocoasubrtf350 {\\fonttbl\\f0\\fswiss\\fcharset0 Helvetica;} {\\colortbl;\\red255\\green255\\blue255;} \\margl1440\\margr1440\\vieww12240\\viewh15840\\viewkind1 \\pard\\tx720\\tx1440\\tx2160\\tx2880\\tx3600\\tx4320\\tx5040\\tx5760\ \tx6480\\tx7200\\tx7920\\tx8640\\ql\\qnatural\\pardirnatural \\f0\\fs24 \\cf0 " set tail to "}" try tell application "Finder" activate set inputFile to choose file with prompt "Choose an underscore delimited plaintext file for input." set inputFileName to name of inputFile set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "." copy text item 1 of inputFileName to inputFileName set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "" set inputFilePath to ((container of inputFile) as alias) as text end tell set inputFileHandle to open for access inputFile set outputFileHandle to open for access file (inputFilePath & inputFileName & "_Italicized.rtf") with write permission write head to outputFileHandle as text on error e number n display dialog "Error: " & (n as text) & return & e end try set textoutput to {} set evenOddOpenCloseItalicsToggle to 0 repeat try set currentChunk to read inputFileHandle until "_" if evenOddOpenCloseItalicsToggle is 0 then if currentChunk is "_" then write ((ASCII character 32) & "\\i " as text) to outputFileHandle as text else write (text 1 thru -2 of currentChunk) & (ASCII character 32) & "\ \i " to outputFileHandle as text end if set evenOddOpenCloseItalicsToggle to 1 else write ((text 1 thru -2 of currentChunk) & (ASCII character 32) & "\ \i0" as text) to outputFileHandle as text set evenOddOpenCloseItalicsToggle to 0 end if on error e number n if n is not -39 then display dialog "Error: " & (n as text) & return & e exit repeat end try end repeat write tail to outputFileHandle as text try close access inputFileHandle close access outputFileHandle end try on error e number n display dialog "Error: " & (n as text) & return & e end try On Oct 2, 2008, at 5:40 PM, Paul Skinner wrote: > This got me to thinking and I knocked this out. It generates a file > named "(originalFilename)_Italicized.rtf" right next to the source > file you choose. Let me know how this does on you r large text file, > I'm curious. ... > > > On Oct 2, 2008, at 4:36 PM, RJay Hansen wrote: > >> On Oct 2, 2008, at 1:59 PM, Bill Steele wrote: >> >>> Unless you need this to happen in front of people's eyes, you >>> don't have to do it in Tex-Edit. You can operate on an Applescript >>> string variable with the search features in the ACME Script >>> Widgets or Satimage OSAXen. >> >> Can you do the text styling though? From what I've been able to >> determine, you can't although I'd be happy to be shown I'm wrong. >> >>> Finding what's between two underscores also could be a regular >>> expression job. >> >> I actually thought of this yesterday when someone on the A.S.S. >> list mentioned regular expressions. However, I've got that part of >> the script working fine. I suspect using regular expressions to do >> that would be quicker, but what I've got goes pretty fast. >> >> RJay