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Combining WP Documents At The DOS Level
DocumentID: 609085
Revision Date: 29-Feb-96 1:33:58 PM

The information in this document applies to:
WordPerfect® 5.1 for DOS

Problem

Symptoms: The customer is using DOS version 4.01. The customer is using the append or copy command at DOS to combine two files together. When the user enters WordPerfect and retrieves the combined file, sometimes the program asks for a password or sometimes the file will not retrieve at all. Most often, when the file is retrieved, it contains several unknown codes. This process of combining two files at DOS and then retrieving the combined file into a program works fine with Lotus and WordStar files. Solutions: There is no way to append two WordPerfect document files together at DOS and have the information be complete and intact. WP 5.0 and 5.1 programs insert prefixes in all document files. Using the COPY command to append WordPerfect files (with any version of DOS) will also append the prefixes. The combined file, when retrieved, is then looked at as one file with multiple prefixes. The first prefix is used as it should be, while the other prefixes appear as garbage. A WP file should only have one prefix because the program will only recognize one prefix. All other prefixes appended within the document will be shown as text, which in turn, looks like garbage to WP. If this file is now retrieved into WP, the program tries to retrieve it as one file. When WP finds the extra prefixes in the middle of the file, the program doesn't know what to do. Sometimes the program will display strange characters at the end of the first document, but sometimes the program will show nothing at all. The prefix is how WP is able to hold initial settings for documents when they are moved from one machine or from one copy of WP to another.

The customer has several options within WP to accomplish the combining of two documents. The customer can use the Master Document feature, the user can retrieve one document right after another in a document screen and then save them out as one file (combining the files within WP), the customer can use a macro or a merge, etc. If the customer insists that they must use DOS to perform this function, the only option that the customer has is to convert their files to the WP 4.2 format. (This will work best if the customer is only using the basic functions of WP within the documents). The converted documents can then be combined at DOS. Any WP 5.0 or 5.1 commands used in a document that were not supported in WP 4.2 will be lost.

Answer:

Details:


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