On Oct 3, 2008, at 3:03 PM, RJay Hansen wrote:

> Okay. This one runs, and it runs extremely quickly. The file I'm  
> running it on is 420K and the script finishes virtually  
> instantaneously.
>
> However, opening the resulting file in Tex-Edit Plus gives very  
> different results than opening it in TextEdit. Items are correctly  
> italicized in TextEdit, but the paragraphs seem to be missing.
>
> In Tex-Edit Plus, all the paragraphs are there, but the supposed-to- 
> be-italic words and phrases are now delimited by \i and \i0 rather  
> than underscores and their style is still plain.
>
> So I tried doing a "Save As..." in TextEdit, saving as rtf, then  
> opened that in Tex-Edit Plus and now the italic strings are all  
> italicized, but the paragraphs are gone. Showing invisibles  
> confirms, there are no paragraphs.
>
> RJay

RTF seems to only want one command per line.  It also wants to have a  
\ before returns that are actual returns.

Try this.  I tested it against itself.

-------------------
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 "}"
	
	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
	
	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 (endlines(text 1 thru -2 of currentChunk) & (ASCII  
character 32) & "\\i " as text) to outputFileHandle
				end if
				set evenOddOpenCloseItalicsToggle to 1
			else
				if currentChunk is "_" then
					write ((ASCII character 32) & "\\i0" as text) to outputFileHandle
				else
					write (endlines(text 1 thru -2 of currentChunk) & (ASCII  
character 32) & "\\i0" as text) to outputFileHandle
				end if
				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
	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 endlines(sometext)
	set tid to text item delimiters
	set text item delimiters to ASCII character 10 -- in 10.5 you can use  
linefeed instead
	set sometext to text items of sometext
	set text item delimiters to "\\" & (ASCII character 10)
	set sometext to sometext as text
	set text item delimiters to return
	set sometext to text items of sometext
	set text item delimiters to "\\" & return
	set sometext to sometext as text
	set text item delimiters to tid
	return sometext
end endlines