Office 2000 TUDOR - Uniplex to Word and Windows

TUDOR is in use in major commercial companies, local and central government organisations. For example, TUDOR has been used as part of successful migrations at:

Compaq	Austrian Telecom	Lucent Technology
GKN	Qantas Airlines	Institute of Taxation
McAlpines	Football Association	Cambridge County Council
Orbit Housing	Cameron McKenna	Southampton Council

Centreline 2000 has reviewed, sold, installed and supported several document conversion packages over the years. Document conversion systems all work to a "hub and spoke" based technology, that is, the source document is converted on one "spoke" to an internal "hub" format, then converted via another "spoke" to the target format.

This two-part conversion, via an intermediate format has meant that with each package the conversion has not been able to manage one or more key attributes of the conversion. Although, for more general conversion purposes, where there is a need to convert from multiple document formats, this approach is the only sensible route one can adopt.

In reviewing requirements of our customers it was clear that there was a general need to migrate documents from Uniplex to PC based systems, and in particular Microsoft systems. It was also clear that the conversion needed to be "format" rich - i.e. produce complete and editable documents at the target.

Centreline 2000 therefore decided to develop a one-way Uniplex to Microsoft Rich Text Format (RTF) convertor. There are some strong benefits of this approach: speed and accuracy being two key elements. The adoption of RTF as the output format guarantees support by any of the Microsoft applications and just about any other Windows based WP system.

Functional Targets:

In addition to the obvious requirement to handle all standard text and formatting controls there are five key areas where shrink-wrap packages are failing to deliver adequate conversion:

1. Correct translation of a Uniplex table to a Word table. Converters usually produced some form of tabbed text, but not in a recognisable table.

2. Conversion of line draw and boxing. Converters would sometimes output line draw characters, but with all formatting lost, so the line draw affect was completely useless.

3. Correct handling of Uniplex font descriptions and in particular the ability to customise the mapping of Uniplex source font descriptions to target font availability.

4. Proper handling of multi-column work in Uniplex to produce proper multi-column documents in the target editor.

5. Recognition of Uniplex printer definitions and print styles. The expected printed output from Uniplex is controlled to a great extent by printer and print style definitions. All shrink-wrap converters failed to recognise this and so are only capable of producing one type of output, not necessarily that which the user needs.

So, the only conclusion was to develop a new convertor aimed at producing high-quality conversions direct from Uniplex to Microsoft RTF - a format supported by all leading PC packages.

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Advanced Uniplex Support

Custom Installation

Single or Batch Conversion

PC, NT and Unix Platforms

Conversion Features

TUDOR supports more Uniplex features than any other convertor available. This includes features such as multi-columns and line-draw which are fundamental to a Uniplex document but which are hard to convert.

Uniplex Dot Commands

PRINT EFFECTS

Uniplex Input	Microsoft Output
A - Bold	Bold
B - Bold Font	Bold Font
C - Underline	Underline
D - Underline text only	Underline text only
E - Bold and Underline	Bold and Underline
F - undefined	Plain Text
G - Small font	Small Font
H - Large font	Large Font
I - Italic	Italic
J - Superscript	Superscript
K - Subscript	Subscript
L - undefined	Plain text
M - Double underline	Underline
N - Double underline text	Underline text
O - Small Proportional Font	Small Proportional Font
P - Normal Proportional Font	Normal Proportional Font
Q - Small Fixed Pitch	Small Fixed Pitch
R - Fixed Pitch	Fixed Pitch
S - Normal font	Normal font
T - Shadow Overstrike	Shadow overstrike
U - Strike Out Slash	Strike Out
V - Strike Out Dash	Strike Out
W - undefined	plain text
X - Index leader	plain text
Z - undefined	plain text

Special Characters

Pound Sign

Hash may be optionally converted to a pound sign or hash and pound sign can be reversed.

Tables and Multi-Columns

This mechanism provides the best fit to MS-Word editing. Because the Uniplex format does not always carry full formatting information and because Word handles line draw in a different fashion to Uniplex this conversion is handled in a best fit fashion.

Priority is given to creating the most usable table possible in Word. Text is preserved before formatting.

Certain diagrams, such as organisation charts will convert with varying degrees of success depending upon their exact formatting.

Double rulers are not converted, as their special formatting is often more simply achieved in the target word processor.

Line Spacing

Download full documentation

	Options		Overview Details Related Tools More Info

	MIME Gateway Uniplex to MS-Exchange and Internet
	WP Convertors options for Uniplex users
	Spreadsheet Convertor from Uniplex to Lotus or Excel formats

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	TUSCANY Uniplex Spreadsheet Conversion
	MEXICO Uniplex to MS-Exchange Migration
	PALLADIO Uniplex to MS-Exchange Integration & Security
	Omni-NFS Unix file & printer sharing, TCP/IP

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