Importing RTF from Atlantis

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rstroud
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Importing RTF from Atlantis

Post by rstroud »

I do not know if this is worth mentioning or not. I discovered the issue a couple of years ago.

Atlantis imports RTF from other programs just fine (or seems to, anyway).

But importing an Atlantis RTF file into another program is a different matter.

Three commonly used software programs that can import RTF are:

(1) SCRIVENER. This program is well-known among writers.

(2) FINAL DRAFT. This is the most commonly used screenwriting application.

(3) FADE IN. This is another excellent screenwriting application.

All three of these applications can import RTF files created in Microsoft Word (2010).

But these applications cannot import RTF files created in Atlantis. The basic problem is that the imported text comes in as one long paragraph. In the case of FADE IN, the text is also in ALL CAPS.

This does not create a real problem, but it is still a curious nuisance.

Any thoughts?

NOTE: If I am remembering correctly, I found that Scrivener imports a .docx file from Atlantis without problem. I use .docx all the time anyway.
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admin
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Post by admin »

When the "Save supercompact RTF documents" option is checked on the "Load/Save" tab of the "Tools | Options..." dialog of Atlantis, it saves paragraph end marks as "\<CR>" (2 bytes) instead of "\par" (4 bytes).

Here is an excerpt from the "Special Characters" section of the Microsoft Rich Text Format Specification:
A carriage return (character value 13) or line feed (character value 10) is treated as a \par control if the character is preceded by a backslash.
The problem is that most RTF readers have a partial support of the RTF format (specification).

But you can always uncheck the corresponding "load/save" option in Atlantis.
rstroud
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Importing RTF from Atlantis

Post by rstroud »

Thank you.

I always wondered what that "compact RTF" meant. :|

Unchecking the "compact" option solved the problem of having just one long paragraph (no newlines).

Capitalization issues remain with Scrivener and Fade In.

(1) Scrivener: RTF styles using all-caps in Atlantis do not automatically produce all-caps in Scrivener (you have to type things as all-caps in the Atlantis document).

(2) Fade In: Just the opposite happens. Some sentences come out as all-caps even though they were not all-caps in Atlantis. I suspect that this is an issue with how Fade In handles the incoming RTF. I think that the problem occurs mainly when a previous line is correctly rendered in all-caps. It is as if Fade In forgets to turn off all-caps.

(3) Final Draft: Happily, though, Final Draft is now importing the Atlantis RTF perfectly.

Again, thanks.
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