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Export a Grandview File to a Tab-Indented Plain Text file - detailed instructions
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Posted by jimspoon
May 12, 2023 at 12:36 AM
It’s possible that some outlining afficianado out there still has ancient Grandview files that he/she would like to save for old time’s sake. Here are the gory details of how I did it.
So far I have converted the Grandview outlines to tab-indented plain text files.
I ran Grandview under DOSBOX-X.
At the DOSBOX-X Z: prompt, enter “mount c c:\onedrive\vdos” - mounts this folder as drive C:
“C:
” - makes C drive current drive.
cd gv - makes GV directory current. This is where I copied GV program files.
gv.exe - starts Grandview.
O - opens open file dialog.
use arrow keys to select “export” folder - this is where I had copied the old Grandview .GV files. Press Enter.
select each Grandview outline in turn. Once the file is open, press Ctrl+` (backtick) to run a “convert” macro I made.
The convert macro exports the outline to a plain-text tab-indented format, and pauses for me to enter a name.
I gave the plain text files the same name as the GV outline file, but with a .TXT extension.
The macro finishes the export, closes the GV outline without saving changes to it, and then reopens the File/Open dialog so that I can open the next GV outline to be exported to plain text.
Explanation of Grandview macro to export current outline to tab-indented plain text file.
To see contents of macro, use
, F (file), M (macros), L (list macros).
A list of defined macros appears. Highlight “{Ctrl-`} convert” and then press M (modify macro).
The contents of the convert macro appear under “Editing Key Defintion” as follows:
{F10}vo{F10}oha{F10}oeeo{Ctrl-Home}{F10}olg{Down}{{Down}{Down}{Down}{Down}{Down}{Down}{Return}F6}{Ctrl-End}{*Pause for Input*}{F10}fepa{*Pause for Input*}{F10}fcno
Breaking this down:
{F10}vo - Menu, View, Outline
{F10}oha - Menu, Outline, Hoist, De-Hoist All
{F10}oeeo - Menu, Outline, Expand, Everything in Outline
{Ctrl-Home} - Place cursor at start of outline
{F10}olg - Menu, Outline, Labels, Get Style
{Down}{{Down}{Down}{Down}{Down}{Down}{Down}{Return} - Select Label style “Plain: No Labels, Outline Indented”
{F6} - start highlighting a block
{Ctrl-End} - move cursor to end of outline to highlight the entire outline
{*Pause for Input*} - wait for me to press Enter; this is just to make sure the entire outline is highlighted before procedding any further.
{F10}fepa - Menu, File, Export, Paragraph - exports to a text file and opens Export dialog for entry of name of exported file
{*Pause for Input*} - wait for entry of export file name.
{F10}fcno - Menu, File, Close, Don’t Save Changes, Open an Outline File. The Open file dialog appears for selection of an outline file to open.
Posted by Amontillado
May 12, 2023 at 05:39 PM
From your TSV output, Easy Data Transform will transmogrify your export to just about anything you want.
I may not use EDT every day but I’m always happy it’s there.