Interesting. What this does is reads your source, and spits out a properly formated RTF file. Here it works splendidly. Why you're getting that error I'm not sure. I suspect it's getting garbled in the exchange. If you want to try it already compiled, you can download it from http://idisk.mac.com/paulskinner-Public?view=web under "Applescript stuff". It's named "Read and parse underscores to italics.app.zip". I am on 10.5.5. What's your OS version? What's your applescript verision? You can just run "version" to get it. Paul On Oct 3, 2008, at 11:59 AM, RJay Hansen wrote: > Hmmm... It comes back with a -1700 error: Can't make "{\\rtf1\\ansi\ > \ansicpg1252\\cocoartf949\\cocoasu.... etc. into text. > > I'm not understanding what the purpose of that part of the script is > for? > > rjay > > > On Oct 2, 2008, at 5:17 PM, Paul Skinner wrote: > >> 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