I was wondering the same thing (if it may have got garbled in email). Running that gives slightly different results. First I get the error: -1728 Can't get text 1 thru -2 of "_" after dismissing that error message I get the same one I got from pasting your script from email into a new script: -1700 Can't make THE PENULTIMATE TRUTH by Philip K. Dick etc.... I'm on 10.4.11 and my AppleScript version is 1.10.7 Did Leopard come w/a new version of AppleScript? RJay On Oct 3, 2008, at 11:31 AM, Paul Skinner wrote: > 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