The easiest way to create tables in RTF files is following:
Write items of the table cells sepatated by hard tabs (^PI), one row on one line. You get a good view of the table, appropriate for check values.
Convert VDE text to RTF
Read RTF file into Word, mark the table as block and choose Table/Convert text to table. Word creates regular table.
The translation table is used before the analysis of every character in the converted text. You can use the table, where the first 32 bytes are null chars. All printing and formatting marks are at first converted to null chars and after that simple not processed. Output is a pure text without any bold, italics etc. parts. You can also modify the translation table to keep subscript/superscript untouched.
Using the same way you can also convert one print mark to another one. F. e. "doublestrike" text is emulated by insertion of spaces and you don't like this. Editing the translation table you can convert "doublestrike" text to bold text.
Similar way as for LXRTF can be used with VDE2RTF ver. 1.2+. PowerPoint can load RTF file with presentation plan (titles and body text of slides). Titles have to be marked as Style#1 and text for body of the slide as Style#2.
Rename VDE2RTFH.TX2 (enlarged version of original one) to VDE2RTFH.TXT
Define for User switch 1 (^PQ) command \s1 and for User switch 2 (^PW) command \s2
Create presentation plan where slide titles are mark as ^PQ and body text as ^PW (see below for example).
Convert VDE text to RTF
Load RTF file into PowerPoint and do fine tuning.
Example ([Q] and [W] means ^PQ and ^PW):
[Q]Title of slide 1 [W]Item 1/1 Item 1/2 Item 1/3 [Q]Title of slide 2 [W]Item 2/1 Item 2/2 Item 2/3
Following control words (commands) can be used in user defined switches and toggle.
Set font from font table in RTF header (\f0 is the first font in table)
Set font size in the half point (\fs24 set font size 12)
Set foreground color from color table in RTF header (\cf0 is the first color in table)
Set background color from color table in RTF header (\cf0 is the first color in table)
Set left-aligned paragraph (default). Can be placed anywhere in paragraph. [space] is needed if the control word is followed by text.
Set right-aligned paragraph. Can be placed anywhere in paragraph. [space] is needed if the control word is followed by text.
Set centered paragraph. Can be placed anywhere in paragraph. [space] is needed if the control word is followed by text.
Set justified paragraph. Can be placed anywhere in paragraph. [space] is needed if the control word is followed by text.
Many thanks to John Woodruff for this idea.
The ^P[Esc] feature, introduced in ver. 1.3, can be used to insert some useful symbols that are available in the standard Windows character set (code page 1252, 1250) but have no equivalent in DOS code pages.
You have still to change the RTF header from
{\rtf1\pca ... etc.
to
{\rtf1\ansi\ ... etc.
| Symbol | Notation |
|---|---|
| euro symbol (in Win XP) | ^P[Esc]'80 |
| en dash | ^P[Esc]'96 |
| trademark symbol | ^P[Esc]'99 |
| section symbol | ^P[Esc]'a7 |
| copyright symbol | ^P[Esc]'a9 |
| registered symbol | ^P[Esc]'ae |
| paragraph symbol | ^P[Esc]'b6 |
| multiplication sign | ^P[Esc]'d7 |
You can, of course, create the simple list using asterisks and (hard) tabs, but you can use in your documents also "regular" list. This trick is more difficult to explain, but in VDE2RTF ver. 1.3 package is example of RTF header VDE2RTFH.TX1, where is prepared definition of list on user toggle (^PU). Now you can simply use ([U] means ^PU):
Text preceeding the list... [U]first item second item third item [U]text following the list...