converting documents from WordPerfect to Word

[waldronlaw]

When opening my old WordPerfect documents in Word, they always come up in the
wrong font : Shruti 12 point instead of Times New Roman 12.5. I have made
the latter my default for new Word documents but that does not help when I
open my old WordPerfect documents. I always have to manually change the
document to the correct font. There must be a way to tell Word to always
open up my old WordPerfect docs in the correct font.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

 

[CyberTaz]

One thing that isn't clear from your post - What font was used in the WP
docs when they were created? That could make a difference as to how to
proceed.

One thing to try in the meanwhile: The next time you open a file that hasn't
already had the fot updated to TNR go to the Office Button & click the Word
Options button. Select Advanced in the left list & scroll to the "Show
document content" group. Click the Font Substitution button to see what
Shruti is being swapped in for, specify TNR to be used instead.
Unfortunately you can't do anything there to cause the font size(s) in the
doc to be changed universally.

You might also consider using Find & Replace to replace the font as well as
the size, but for anything that will do this "automatically" you'll need to
have some code supplied.

 

[waldronlaw]

Hi Bob -

Thanksfor yourreply. The documents were all created using TNR 12.5. Sounds
like there is nothing that can be done universally - that I have to change
each document as it is opened.

 

[CyberTaz]

That being the case, the TNR originally used must have been a different
"flavor" - perhaps even a different type of font altogether. With WP files
it could also be a matter of how the font data is encoded.

I'd still take a look in the Font Substitution dialog - Something is causing
the use of Shruti & font substitution is done because Word can't locate the
font the doc claims it needs or because Word doesn't understand what it's
being told. In order to display the content Word picks the "nearest
neighbor" matching the font metrics as best it can. It's usually pretty
close, but sometimes not. It's a bit trickier perhaps if the file isn't a
Word doc because of the encoding used in the file, but something is keeping
Word from recognizing the required font as TNR.

Unfortunately even this won't help as far as automating the conversion, and
the files do have to be opened in order to make the change. What *might* be
possible is programmatically opening the files in question & changing the
font specs a part of the process. Not being a programmer I can't even say
for sure what the likelyhood is but I'm pretty sure it will depend on how
many files are involved as to whether it's worth pursuing.

You'll probably get some additional replies from those more knowledgeable in
that regard than I so keep checking back.

 

[Tom Ferguson]

Sorry to say, I have completely lost track of the details of how the various
file format converters work. For example, the WP 5.5 converter used to
(perhaps still does) do the conversion in two steps. WP to RTF, RTF to DOC.
And changes could occur in font mapping at each step. There could be
differences depending on the printer driver selected.

My suggestion in the present case would be, in agreement with CyberTaz, to
try the Font Substitution option in Word. Elect to make the substitution
permanent. Then, the election should be written back and every document
converted should now automatically have the same choice applied without
further intervention.
Tom
MSMVP 1998-2007
PS
In some cases, you can get better mapping if you use WP to save the file as
DOC, Word 97.I know that means you still need WP installed and it is tedious
to open and save every old file. And other details of the conversion might
not be as good. table formatting, for example.
T