Date: 7 Sep 84 13:08:29 EDT (Friday)
Subject: LetterPerfect document copy utility
To: Atari Users
From: Dan Fleysher <Fleysher.wbst@XEROX>

I wrote a utility in BASIC with machine language assist that some of you
may be interested in.  It reads a document (file) off a Letter Perfect
disk and writes it onto an Atari DOS (single density) disk.

I use it when I prepare several paragraphs of text using Letter Perfect
and then transmit the text via modem to a host computer, etc.  It could
also enable Letter Perfect documents to be printed on a serial printer
hooked up via a RS-232 interface.  Since Letter Perfect does not provide
for transmission of documents to the R: devices, and since Letter
Perfect file formats are not compatible with Atari DOS, I decided to
write this utility.

Once the text is on an Atari DOS disk, any of several terminal upload
programs can be used to transmit the text from the disk over the modem.
Warning: an upload program which is line-oriented (with a limited size
buffer of 80 or 100 characters) will choke on the text file, because
Letter Perfect documents contain a carriage return only at the end of
each paragraph.

Operation of this copy utility is pretty self-explanatory.  You run it
under Atari BASIC, insert the Letter Perfect disk, and ask for a listing
of the directory (which can optionally include documents which have been
marked for deletion).  You enter the number of the document of interest,
and the program reads the Letter Perfect disk, prompts you to insert the
Atari DOS disk, and writes out the DOS-compatible file.  If the Letter
Perfect document is too big for the buffer space in your machine, the
program prompts you about alternately removing and inserting disks until
the entire file has been copied.

The performance of this utility while writing the DOS disk is nothing to
brag about, because the DOS disk is written a character at a time thru
BASIC.  This portion of the program could be reworked if I (or one of
you) can find the time.

Other suggestions for improvement of this utility are welcomed.  If
anyone tries using it with a more recent version of Letter Perfect than
the one I have (version 1), I'd like to hear about the results.  Anyone
interested in background Letter Perfect file info - just ask.

	Dan

Note:  the following characters may be garbled in the transmission over
the net:

Line 150:  the first character printed is a "clear screen"; this is
followed by inverse video text

Line 570:  the printed string is "space, vertical line"