Text Formats

Cyrk Text Converter converts to and from Macintosh text, Windows text, RTF and HTML. Below is an introduction to the different formats.

RTF

RTF (Rich Text Format) is a text format that is often used to exchange styled word-processing documents between different MS-DOS, Windows, OS/2, Macintosh, and Power Macintosh applications. Most word-processing applications like Microsoft Word and AppleWorks can open and save documents in RTF format.

Characters in RTF texts can be formatted with font, bold, italic and underline.

RTF text consists of paragraphs, and each paragraph is of a certain paragraph style. Typically every heading level is a paragraph style, just as paragraphs with quotations can have a special paragraph style. When converting text from RTF to other formats, Cyrk Text Converter lets you specify how each paragraph style is converted.

Moreover, RTF texts can contain information about the text (author, title, description and keywords) and Cyrk Text Converter includes this information when converting between RTF and HTML.

Finally, RTF texts can include footnotes. When converting to other formats, Cyrk Text Converter places the footnotes at the bottom of the text, and when converting to HTML, the footnote number in the text is a link to the footnote.

HTML

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is a format for text used on the Internet. The format of pages presented in a browser (like Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator) is HTML, so the page you read right now is an example of an HTML text.

When converting to HTML, Cyrk Text Converter observes the HTML specifications of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) contrary to many other applications that converts text to HTML.

Text in the HTML format can contain character style that can either be structural information (fx emphasis or computer code) or indicate how text is to be presented (fx bold or italic). Cyrk Text Converter can read and convert to both types. In particular, Cyrk Text Converter can convert “presentation” information like italic to structural information like emphasis (observing the HTML specifications).

Text in the HTML format consists of paragraphs. Paragraphs can be of different types, fx regular text, headings or quotations. Cyrk Text Converter lets you specify how each paragraph style is converted to other formats.

The appearance of HTML text should be specified in a “style sheet”, and Cyrk Text Converter is ideal for converting text to HTML using style sheet layout specification.

HTML texts can contain information about the text (author, title, description and keywords) and Cyrk Text Converter includes this information when converting between RTF and HTML.

An HTML page is often linked to other objects, fx images, that is included when the page is presented in a browser. Cyrk Text Converter can include image link when converting from HTML to HTML, but otherwise a replacement text for the image is included.

Macintosh text

Macintosh text is a simple text format that all word processing applications on a Macintosh can read. Macintosh texts are often opened by SimpleText. Examples of Macintosh text:

• A SimpleText text.
• A BBEdit text.
• A document saved as “text only” from Microsoft Word or AppleWorks.
• An e-mail saved on the harddisc from an e-mail application like Microsoft Outlook Express.

A Macintosh text can be unstyled or styled. Cyrk Text Converter can read and convert to style information like font (fx Geneva or Times), bold, italic and underline. In unstyled Macintosh text, formatting is sometimes done by using *, / and _, making words “bold” *like*this*. Cyrk Text Converter can convert *bold* to bold and vice-versa.

Windows text

The character set of Windows is different from the character set of MacOS. Therefore, Windows text must be converted if it is to be opened on a Macintosh computer, just as Macintosh text must be converted before it can be used on a Windows computer.

A document with Windows text can fx be a document from Notepad on a Windows computer, or a document from the Internet.

Apart from the character set, Windows text is identical to unstyled Macintosh text.