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The most recent version of this document can always be found online
| Possible values | HTML colours |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Document colours |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Identifies the colour of "active" hyperlinks, that is the colour of the hyperlink just as it is being selected. This value is a HTML colour that is used to set the ALINK attribute of the <BODY> tag.
See also :-
Unvisited Link Colour
Visited Link Colour
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Hyperlinks |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Hyperlinks |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates that lines that are detected as having URLs in them
should have <BR> markup added to the end. This is useful in documents
that have a list of URLs, one per line, as the URLs usually make the
lines quite long (avoiding short line detection), and you would want to
preserve the line structure.
However, this is less useful where URLs occur in the middle of a paragraph of text, as it inserts a <BR>, and breaks the paragraph.
Prior to V3.0 this was default behaviour, but now it is switched off by default.
In later versions we may attempt to make this policy auto-detected.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
This specifies that, if possible, a contents frame should be placed on the left of the screen to hold a generated contents list. Alternatively a CONTENTS_FRAME HTML fragment can be defined
Generated contents lists are only possible when the program recognises headings inside your text file, so you may need to get that working first.
If no content for the contents frame is possible, a WARNING message is generated.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Contents |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Contents List |
| Command line option | /CONTENTS |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies that the program should generate a contents list or index to
match all the section heading that it marks up. This contents list
will consist of hyperlinks to take you to the corresponding section
and HTML file.
The placement of the contents list depends on
- how you have decided to split up your output HTML (see Split level)).
- whether you have any $_$_CONTENT_LIST directives placed in your source file
- whether or not the file has an existing contents list that is recognised by the program. If it has then by default that list will be used and converted into hyperlinks. (see Expect Contents List)
Whenever you elect to have a contents list generated, any lines perceived by the program as being part of a contents list in the original document will be discarded.
You can enable this option from the command line by using the /CONTENTS qualifier (see Changing policies by using command line options)
The default location for the contents list
If you are simply generating a single HTML page, then any contents list will be placed at the top of the page.
If you decide to split your HTML into several files, then the contents list is placed at the bottom of first page. Any text before the first section in your document will be placed before the contents list in this first page.
Placing the contents list in separate fileIf you want, you can chose to place the contents list in a separate file. If you choose this option a "Tables of Contents" link will be added to the top of your file. See Generate external contents file
Changing the contents list placement in the HTMLFrom V3.2 onwards you can place a contents list wherever you want by inserting a $_$_CONTENTS_LIST directive at the desired location (see Changing policies by using preprocessor directives). When these tags are detected no default contents list is created.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> HTML Styling |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to HTML generation)
Specifies whether explicit bold and italic markup should be generated. Adding <EM> and <STRONG> tags will override any text formatting supplied via CSS, so in general this will be true where <FONT> tags are being used, but should be set to "no" when CSS is being relied on for text markup.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
This specifies whether or not you want visible borders on your frames. If the borders are visible then users will be able to select and move them to resize the frames to a size that suits them.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Contents |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Contents |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies whether or not mail headers should be included in any generated
contents list. For a mail digest this should be yes, but for larger documents
with only a couple of mail headers the answer may be no.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes (when splitting HTML into many files) |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | File generation |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> File generation -> Split into many files |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This policy is only relevant if you have elected to split your document
into a number of smaller HTML files (see split level)
In such cases this policy allows you have a navigation bar inserted at the foot of each HTML page, before any standard footer is added.
The navigation bar consists of
This policy is enabled by default whenever file splitting is selected.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
Specifies that a NOFRAMES link should be added to the Contents frame. You can choose the target of this link using the NOFRAMES link URL policy.
The NOFRAMES link will target the "_top" browser window, thereby replacing the current FRAMESET by the single page selected without creating new browser windows.
NOFRAMES links are useful courtesy to users who dislike FRAMES, and they are also search-engine friendly.
Note, this link is a visible NOFRAMES link. In addition to this the software will in any case create a non-visible <NOFRAMES> tag that will allow users whose browsers do not support FRAMES to access your content.
See also :-
NOFRAMES link URL
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Style |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates that automatic detection of centred text should be attempted.
The indentation and length of each line is compared to the nominal page width
within a specified tolerance (see page width and Automatic centring tolerance)
If the line appears centred (and meets a few other conditions) then it will be rendered centred in the output.
This option is normally left switched off, as it is still too prone to give errors (i.e. centring lines that shouldn't be). This has been improved in later versions, but is still not robust enough to be relied upon.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Preprocessor |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates whether or not the program should look for definition terms inside
a pre-formatted section of text. Only really relevant if the
Highlight definition text policy is enabled.
Sometimes lists of definitions appear like pre-formatted text, especially if the definitions are aligned on the right.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Hyperlinks |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Hyperlinks |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates whether or not email addresses that start with a number are
permitted or not.
Often USENET and mail headers reference message IDs which are of the form <number>@<domain name>. As such they will often look like valid email addresses. This policy may be used to control how such addresses are interpreted.
| Possible values | URL describing the author of this document |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Title, description etc. |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
Identifies the URL of the author of this document. A META tag will be added to the HTML so that those browsers that can display this information can use it.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates that the program should attempt automatic table generation on any
apparently pre-formatted text it encounters. Text that appears pre-formatted
to the program can turn out to be a number of different things
- a table
- a diagram
- a code sample
- not pre-formatted text after all
The program will attempt to distinguish between these, but it's a blank art. Table generation may not be appropriate for the document being converted, or alternatively the table generated may be so flawed that you'd prefer to use <PRE>...</PRE> markup, in which case you can use this policy to switch that feature off.
When switched off the program will still look for pre-formatted text, but will default to outputting it in <PRE> ... </PRE> markup as it did prior to v2.2.
| Possible values | number of characters 0,1,2... |
| Default value | 2 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Style |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies the tolerance used (expressed as a number of characters offset)
when detecting centred text.
Given that the detection of centred text depends on its position relative to the calculated page width, which itself may not be accurate, increasing this value may give better results. Equally, it may wrongly detect more text as centred.
The default value is 2, which is also used as a minimum regardless of the value you enter.
See also :-
Allow automatic centring.
| Possible values | HTML colours |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Document colours |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Identifies the background colour of the HTML page(s) created.
This value is a HTML colour that is used to set the BGCOLOR attribute of
the <BODY> tag. If omitted, AscToHTM defaults to a white background
(I find Gray too dull)
| Possible values | URL of image file (e.g. a .jpg or .gif) |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Title, description etc. |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Identifies the URL of any image to be placed in the BACKGROUND
attribute of the <BODY> tag.
| Possible values | URL to be used as a bookmark |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Title, description etc. |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
Identifies the URL to be used as the bookmark for this document. A META tag will be added to the HTML so that those browsers that understand this information can use it.
| Possible values | Text | string |
| Default value | (see | below) |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy | |
| Policy file section | RTF | |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> RTF Settings | |
| Command line option | n/a | |
| Related directives | n/a | |
(Only applies to RTF generation)
For conversions to RTF only, this specifies size of margin at the bottom of the page. If omitted the Word default of 1 inch (2.54 cm) will be used.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | File generation |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> File generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies that long HTML lines should be broken into smaller ones. This
attempts to make the HTML more readable, should you need to edit it afterwards.
However, there is the possibility that the insertion of newline characters into the output could affect how the HTML is displayed. This is because most of the browsers have bugs in their parsing of newlines. These problems are most pronounced when using non-standard (12pt) font sizes.
If you experience such problems, try disabling this policy.
| Possible values | '<character>'. One policy line per character |
| Default value | '*' |
| Policy scope | Fixed analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Bullets |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Bullets |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This policy will probably be replaced in future versions
This species a character that can occur at the start of a line to represent a bullet point. Special attention is paid to '-' and 'o' characters, but any character will do.
The program should detect such characters (e.g. special character codes for bullets that are generated when saving from Word etc.)
Use one line for each bullet char.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Headings |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Headings |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
Specifies that the first heading in a document should be centred, making it look more like the document title.
See also :-
Use first line as heading
| Possible values | HTML character encoding schemes |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Title, description etc. |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This allows the HTML character encoding to be set. Although designed to convert documents that use the ASCII character set, the software has some ability to convert Japanese and Cyrillic files amongst others. For such files to display correctly, the character encoding has to be set up correctly. This value is then used in a META tag added to the document header.
Possible values include
big5, csbig5 - Chinese (Big5) gb2312, csGB2312 - Chinese (gb) koi8-r - Cyrillic ms Kanji - Japanese shift jis, csShiftJIS - Japanese x-sjis
- Japanese
iso-8859-n
- (n=1,2,3) various languages (Greek, Turkish,
Arabic, etc)
UTF-8 - Unicode
Although I don't think AscToHTM will support Unicode at present.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Hyperlinks |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Hyperlinks |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates whether or not potential URLs should have their "domain name" checked against the known domain name structures, (i.e. ends in .com, .org, .co.uk etc). Having this switched on reduces the likelyhood of invalid URLs being turned into clickable links that don't go anywhere. Note, the software doesn't check the domain exists, only that the domain name obeys the known rules.
You might want to switch this off if your document contains URLs that don't use standard domain names (e.g. they are inside an Intranet).
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> RTF Settings |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to RTF generation)
New in version 5.0
For conversions to RTF only, this specifies the characters to be used as bullet characters in the generated RTF. Normally RTF will use special bullet symbols, but these can cause problems if you want to cut and paste the RTF text into a plain text editor.
To get round this problem this policy can be used. The first character will be used for level 1 bullets, the second for level 2 bullets etc ...
This policy will not take effect if the policy Use original bullet text has been enabled.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Headings |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> HTML styling |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies that when checking headings the indentation should be checked for consistency. This can help reduce the error rate when numbered lists and numbered headings are both in the same document, but on the other hand can cause problems in documents where the headings are centred, and therefore at all different indentations.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_COLO(U)R_ROWS" |
Indicates that where AscToHTM detects and generates HTML tables, the data
rows (as opposed to the Header rows) should be alternatively be coloured
differently. This helps highlight the different rows, especially if the
table has no border.
See also :-
Default TABLE odd row colour
Default TABLE even row colour
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Tables |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
When a Default TABLE layout is set, this specifies whether or not the boundaries between columns have zero size. By default the software assumes there is a single-character boundary (either a space or a delimiter character) between columns.
Sometimes data comes from a source with no character between data columns. This policy should be set in such cases.
| Possible values | 1-10 |
| Default value | 5 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Table Analysis |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
When analysing preformatted regions to look for tables, this indicates
the degree to which potential columns should be "merged" if there is
any doubt as to their validity.
A value of 10 means almost all "suspicious" columns will be merged together. This is suitable when the analysis is producing too many false columns, and may happen when the table contains a lot of free form text that just happens to line up.
A value of 1 means that no "suspicious" columns will be eliminated.
Note, it is still possible that the number and position of columns will be calculated incorrectly. In such cases you may need to explicitly supply a table layout. See Default table layout
| Possible values | 0,1 or 2 |
| Default value | 0 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | n/a |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Added HTML -> Advanced Options |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Used to control the placing of comment in the code advertising the fact that AscToHTM was used to generate the file. By default the program will add a META tag marking ASCTOHTM as the generator and comments at the top and bottom of the file identifying the program.
The value should be set as follows
0 META tag and comments added 1 META tag added 2 neither added
This policy is only available in the registered version of the software.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | File generation |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> File generation |
| Command line option | /concatenate |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in 4.2
When enabled this specifies that when converting multiple files at the same time, all the results should be merged together to form a single output file.
If the output file name hasn't been set, then it will be derived from the first file converted in the usual manner.
Depending on the target format, only one header and one footer will be added. By default this will be the header that the first file would have and the footer that the last file (or all files combined) would have.
This options is supported as follows
AscToHTM Not yet AscToRTF Not Yet Detagger Yes
| Possible values | HTML Colours |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames -> Frame colours |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
See discussion in Header frame background colour.
| Possible values | HTML Colours |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames -> Frame colours |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
See discussion in Header frame background colour.
| Possible values | Size in pixels or as a percentage |
| Default value | 200 |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
If a contents frame is generated, this specifies its width. The default is 200 pixels. To specify a percentage, add the % sign on the end, e.g. "30%"
See also :-
Header Frame depth
Footer Frame depth
| Possible values | 0, 1 |
| Default value | 0 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Contents |
| Menu location | (only available by editing policy file) |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies a "style" to be applied to the contents list. There aren't too
many options at present.
Possible values are
0
AscToHTM "Classic". Contents line is bolded
1 As above, but not bolded.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_CONVERT_XREFS" |
Indicates whether or not cross-references to numbered sections should
be converted into hyperlinks to those sections. Unfortunately, the
program cannot differentiate between section references and ordinary
numbers in the source text (unless you place the number inside a TEXT
in-line tag). This leads to occasional errors, for example
when software version numbers are discussed in a document.
This problem proved to be particularly acute inside tables of numbers. For that reason this policy was introduced to allow the conversion of section numbers to hyperlinks inside a TABLE to be switched off independently from the rest of the document.
By default this policy is disabled. Users should only switch this behaviour on if they have a table of section numbers (such an index or contents list)
| Possible values | URL of copyright notice |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Title, description etc. |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
Identifies a URL describing the copyright notice for this document. A META tag will be added to the HTML so that those browsers that can display this information can use it.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Tables |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies whether or not blank lines inside a table should be taken to
be row separators. If they are, and there are enough of them, then the
table will have all adjacent lines merged into single multi-line rows.
If they're not, then each line will become a row in the table.
This policy is usually determined on a case-by-case basis for each table.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Hyperlinks |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Hyperlinks |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This indicates that probable FTP references such as ftp.microsoft.com
should be converted into active hyperlinks. Sometimes text is assumed
to be an ftp link when it isn't. If you find that happening, use this
policy to prevent the conversion.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Hyperlinks |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Hyperlinks |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This indicates that probable gopher references should be converted
into active hyperlinks.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Hyperlinks |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Hyperlinks |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This indicates that probable USENET newsgroup references such as
alt.games.mornington.cresent (sic) are to be converted into active hyperlinks.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Hyperlinks |
| Menu location | n/a |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This indicates that probable telnet references should be converted into active hyperlinks.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | n/a |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> File Generation |
| Command line option | /LOG=<filespec> |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies that a .log file should be created. This will contains copies of all
the messages output during conversion, together with some that may have been
suppressed.
See also :-
Output log filename
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Hyperlinks |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Hyperlinks |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This indicates that all candidate http, www and ftp URLs should be converted
into active hyperlinks.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Hyperlinks |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Hyperlinks |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This indicates that all candidate email addresses are to be converted
into active mailto hyperlinks.
| Possible values | Headings level, 0,1,2.. |
| Default value | 2 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Hyperlinks |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Hyperlinks |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
For documents with numbered section headings, this indicates the section
level at which and above which all cross-references are to be converted
to hyperlinks to the sections themselves.
For example a value of 2 means all n.n, n.n.n etc references are converted. A value of "1" might seem desirable, but is liable to give many false references. This is because the error rate becomes too high on single numbers/letters or roman numerals.
This may be refined in later releases.
A value of "0" means "don't add hyperlinks to cross-references".
See also :-
Expect numbered headings.
| Possible values | "<face>, <Type>, <size>, <prop>, <serif>, <charset>" |
| Default value | "Times New Roman, Regular, 12" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Fonts |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This tells the program what font should be used. The value is a comma separated list which contains
| <face> |
The font family name (e.g. "Arial") |
| <Type> |
Whether or not it's bold etc. The possible values are Regular Bold Italic BoldItalic |
| <size> |
Font size in points (pts) |
| Possible values | L[eft],R[ight],C[enter],A[utomatic] |
| Default value | Automatic |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_ALIGN" |
Specifies how the table should be aligned with respect to the page. The default behaviour is "automatic", which usually means left-justified, but taking into account any indentation the table has.
| Possible values | HTML colours |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_BORDERCOLOR" |
This tells AscToHTM what colour to use for the table border.
Not all browsers support this.
| Possible values | A size (in pixels) |
| Default value | 0 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_BORDER" |
This policy sets the default value for the <TABLE> BORDER attribute.
A value of 0 means "no border".
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | (only available by editing policy file) |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_CAPTION" |
Specifies the caption to be applied to generated tables. However, since this
will be applied to all generated tables, this is less useful that placing
individual TABLE_CAPTION directives in your source text.
| Possible values | L[eft],R[ight],C[enter],J[ustified] |
| Default value | "(none)" - meaning auto-detect. |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_CELL_ALIGN" |
Specifies the default cell-alignment to be applied to table cells. Normally
the program will try to auto-detect a suitable cell alignment on a column
by column, cell by cell basis.
You can use this to (rather crudely) set all cells to be aligned the same way if the results are not to your taste.
| Possible values | A size (in pixels) |
| Default value | 2 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_CELLPADDING" |
This tells AscToHTM what value to use for the TABLE CELLPADDING attribute
of the table. Browsers that support this will add space inside each
cell.
A value of "0" means "none".
| Possible values | A size (in pixels) |
| Default value | 2 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_CELLSPACING" |
This tells AscToHTM what value to use for the CELLSPACING attribute
of the table. Browsers that support this will add space between each
cell.
A value of "0" means "none".
| Possible values | HTML colours |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_BGCOLOR" |
This tells AscToHTM what colour to use for the background to each
cell. Not all browsers support this.
If omitted the table with take on the background colour of the whole page.
See also :-
Background Colour.
| Possible values | Single character to be used as delimiter |
| Default value | none |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Main screen |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
This policy is used to save the value of the "delimiter character" selected on the main screen whenever the "input file type" has been set to "other-delimited table", indicating that the input file is to be treated as a single, character-delimited, data table.
| Possible values | HTML colours |
| Default value | "E0F0E0" |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_EVEN_ROW_COLO(U)R" |
When AscToHTM is to colour odd and even rows in the tables that it generates
different colours (see Colour data rows), this identifies the colour
of the even numbered rows.
See also :-
Default TABLE odd row colour.
| Possible values | Number of columns 0,1... |
| Default value | 0 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | (only available by editing policy file) |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_HEADER_COLS" |
This tells AscToHTM how many columns in each table should be highlighted
as "header" columns using <B> ... </B> markup inside the table cells.
Normally this is 0.
| Possible values | Number of rows 0,1.... |
| Default value | 0 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_HEADER_ROWS" |
This policy tells AscToHTM how many lines should be treated as header
lines and placed in <TH> .. </TH> markup.
The program will treat a small number of lines of text above a line as header automatically, so you only need this if that doesn't work.
If set, this value will apply to all tables.
| Possible values | Attributes to add to the <TABLE> tag. |
| Default value | Automatic |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
(Only applies to HTML generation)
This option specifies any HTML attributes that should be added to each <TABLE> tag that is created. This can be used to customize the table's behaviour and appearance.
For example you can add the necessary JavaScript attributes to add the ability to sort the table.
See also Default TABLE html cell attributes
| Possible values | Attributes to add to the <TABLE> tag. |
| Default value | Automatic |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
(Only applies to HTML generation)
This option specifies any HTML attributes that should be added to each cell in the tables that are create, that is, to the <TH> and <TD> tags that are created.
This can be used to customize the table's behaviour and appearance. For example you can add the necessary JavaScript attributes to add the ability to sort the table.
| Possible values | <layout description> |
| Default value | 0 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Tables |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_LAYOUT" |
This policy tells the program what the column structure is for any tables
in the file. This will only work if all tables in the file have the same
structure.
The <layout description> takes the form
<number of columns>,"<col 1 spec>","<col 2>",.....
where,
<Number_of_cols>
Integer number of columns
<col_n_spec>
Specification of the nth column. The
specification must be contained in quote.
Currently the specification consists of
- the end position of the column.
More may be added in later versions
An example would be
Default TABLE layout : 3,"6","21","32"
which describes a 3-column table with column boundaries at the 6th, 21st and 32nd character positions.
If the policy is used the layout will apply to all tables in the file. For this reason it is normally better to place an equivalent "TABLE_LAYOUT" pre-processor directive between BEGIN_TABLE...END_TABLE directives for the table it applies to.
| Possible values | HTML colours |
| Default value | "F0F0F0" |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_ODD_ROW_COLO(U)R" |
When AscToHTM is to colour odd and even rows in the tables that it generates
different colours (see Colour data rows), this identifies the colour
of the odd numbered rows.
See also :-
Default TABLE even row colour.
| Possible values | Table width in pixels or as a % of screen width |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_WIDTH" |
This tells AscToHTM what value to use for the WIDTH attribute of the table.
The WIDTH is specified either as a number (of pixels) or as a percentage (of screen width). Thus "400" and "75%" are both valid values (without the quotes)
| Possible values | One line per character in the form 'char' weak/strong} |
| Default value | '-' (weak) |
| Policy scope | Fixed analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> General Layout |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This policy will probably be replaced in future versions
This specifies the characters used to detect "definitions". A definition line is a single line that appears to be defining something. Usually this is a line with either a colon (:) or an equals sign (=) in it. For example
IMHO = In my humble opinion
Address : Somewhere over the rainbow.
The character can be marked as "Strong" or "weak". Strong means such characters always signal a definition. Weak means they only sometimes do this, depending on the position relative to the Page Width.
The user interface presents this more cleanly than the text in the policy file does, and the latter may be changed in later versions.
| Possible values | Local file Table definitions |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Config Files |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Configuration Files |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
Identifies the name of a text file which defines Table definitions that allow tables spotted during the conversion to have their behaviour and characteristics tailored in a number of ways.
See the sections on "Using Table Definition Files (TDF)" in the program manuals.
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Directory |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Directory List |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
When you have elected to create a directory file (see Make Directory),
this indicates the description of your document that is added to a META tag
inserted into the <HEAD> section of the Directory page as follows :-
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="your description">
This tag is often used by search engines (e.g. AltaVista) as a brief description of the contents of your page. If omitted the first few lines may be shown instead, which is often less satisfactory.
| Possible values | Comma-separated list of keywords |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Directory |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Directory List |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
When you have elected to create a directory file (see Make Directory),
this allows you to specify keywords that are added to a META tag inserted
into the <HEAD> section of the Directory page as follows :-
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="your list or keywords">
This tag is often used by search engines when indexing your HTML page. You should add here any relevant keywords possibly not contained in the text itself.
| Possible values | Local file containing JavaScript fragment you want embedding |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Directory |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Directory List |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
When you have elected to create a directory file (see Make Directory), this identifies the name of a text include file to be transcribed into the <HEAD> ... </HEAD> portion of the generated HTML page.
This allows you to place JavaScript in your pages (though you'll be a little limited as to what it can act on).
If omitted, this will default to any script file used in the rest of the HTML pages as set by the HTML Script file policy.
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Directory |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Directory List |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
When you have elected to create a directory file (see Make Directory), this specifies the text to be used as the HTML title of the Directory page.
| Possible values | Local file to be created with directory contents |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Directory |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Directory List |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
When you have elected to create a directory file (see Make Directory), this specifies the name of the Directory page html file to be created.
If omitted, this will default to "dirindex.html" in the output directory. Prior to V3.2 this used to be "index.html", but people complained when that overwrote their existing index.html files.
| Possible values | Local file containing HTML code to be used as footer |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Directory |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Directory List |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
When you have elected to create a directory file (see Make Directory),
this identifies the name of a text include file to be transcribed into
the HTML file at the bottom of the <BODY> ... </BODY> portion of the
generated HTML page.
This can be used to add "return to home page" links, and contact addresses to your HTML pages.
If omitted, this will default to any header file used in the rest of the HTML pages as set by the HTML header file policy.
| Possible values | Local file containing HTML code to be used as header |
| Default value | "dirindex.html" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Directory |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Directory List |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
When you have elected to create a directory file (see Make Directory),
this identifies the name of a text include file to be transcribed into
the HTML file at the top of the <BODY> ... </BODY> portion of the
Directory page.
If omitted, this will default to any header file used in the rest of the HTML pages as set by the HTML header file policy.
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "Directory" |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Directory |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Directory List |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
When you have elected to create a directory file (see Make Directory), this specifies the text to be shown on the hyperlink linking each HTML page back to the Directory page.
The default value is "Directory"
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | n/a |
| Menu location | Settings -> Diagnostic messages |
| Command line option | /SILENT |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies that all display and informational messages should be suppressed.
If selected, you will get no messages displayed at all, although these
can still be directed to a .log file (e.g. by using the /LOG command qualifier)
This policy is equivalent to the /SILENT command qualifier.
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Document details |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to RTF generation)
For conversions to RTF only, this specifies the Author name to be placed in the generated file's document details section.
| Possible values | Absolute URL (i.e. including domain name) |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Added HTML -> Advanced Options |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "BASEHREF" |
This policy allows you to specify a URL that will be placed in a <BASE> tag inserted into the <HEAD> section of the output HTML page(s) as follows :-
<BASE HREF="URL">
This tag is used to specify the base URL against which all relative URLs should be resolved. You might want to use this if you are going to copy the page to a mirror location, but not copy the pages referred to in the relative links (like images, style sheets etc.)
Ignored in RTF conversions.
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Document details |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to RTF generation)
For conversions to RTF only, this specifies the document category to be placed in the generated file's document details section.
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Document details |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to RTF generation)
For conversions to RTF only, this specifies any comments to be placed in the generated file's document details section.
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Document details |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to RTF generation)
For conversions to RTF only, this specifies the Company name to be placed in the generated file's document details section.
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Title, description etc. or Output -> Document Details |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "DESCRIPTION" |
This policy allows you to specify a description of your document
that is added to a META tag inserted into the <HEAD> section of the
output page(s) as follows :-
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="your description">
This tag is often used by search engines (e.g. AltaVista) as a brief description of the contents of your page. If omitted the first few lines may be shown instead, which is often less satisfactory.
Any DESCRIPTION pre-processor command(s) present in the source document will override this policy/
In a RTF conversion the description will be placed in the document details header.
| Possible values | Comma-separated list of keywords and phrases |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Title, description etc. or Output -> Document Details |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "KEYWORDS" |
This policy allows you to specify keywords that are added to a META tag
inserted into the <HEAD> section of the output HTML page(s) as follows :-
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="your list or keywords">
This tag is often used by search engines when indexing your HTML page. You should add here any relevant keywords possibly not contained in the text itself.
Any KEYWORDS pre-processor command(s) present in the source file will override this policy.
In an RTF conversion this will be placed in the document details header.
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Document details |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to RTF generation)
For conversions to RTF only, this specifies the name of the Document's manager to be placed in the generated file's document details section.
| Possible values | URL of a .CSS file to be used as the external style sheet |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> CSS |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "STYLE_SHEET" |
This specifies the URL of a style sheet file, usually with a .css extension.
Style sheet files are a new HTML feature that allow you specify fonts and
colours to be applied to your document. By placing this information in
a separate file, the same style can be applied to
The resulting HTML is inserted into the <HEAD> section of the output page(s) as follows :-
<LINK REL="STYLESHEET" HREF="URL" TYPE="text/css">
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Document details |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to RTF generation)
For conversions to RTF only, this specifies the document's Subject to be placed in the generated file's document details section.
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Title, description etc. or Output -> Document Details |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TITLE" |
Identifies the text to be placed in the <TITLE> ... </TITLE> markup
in the document header.
If omitted, the default title will be "Converted from <filename>". We did consider defaulting to the first line of text, but that rarely works.
However you can get this effect by using either of the Use first heading as title or Use first line as title policies.
The title can also be specified via the TITLE preprocessor command placed in the source document, which will override this policy when present.
If order the preference for the title is
- First heading (if allowed by policy)
- First line (if allowed by policy)
- Value of any TITLE pre-processor command
- Document title (if supplied by policy)
- Converted from "<filename>"
| Possible values | Text | string (up to 5 characters) |
| Default value | "" | |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy | |
| Policy file section | File | generation |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> File generation | |
| Command line option | n/a | |
| Related directives | n/a | |
Where DOS filenames are used this allows you to specify an up-to-5
character root to which any section numbers will be appended
(see Split level).
If splitting a document at 2 levels we normally recommend a 3-character filename root.
Thus MYDOC.TXT given a root of MYD would produce MYD.HTM, MYD_1.HTM MYD_1_1.HTM etc... which are all less than 8 characters and thus maintain some readability.
If no root were specified, MYDOC_1_1.HTM would be renamed to MYDnnnnn.HTM where "nnnnn" would be a generated 5-digit code.
| Possible values | 1 (not many messages) - 10 (lots of messages) |
| Default value | 5 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Messages |
| Menu location | Settings -> Diagnostic messages |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies the level of error reporting you want during the conversion.
The program can generate a variety of messages of varying severity to inform
you of the decisions it's made. These messages can be useful in explaining
why a conversion has gone wrong, but are less interesting at other times.
Whilst all of these messages are copied into any diagnostic .lis files created (see Generate diagnostics files) regardless of severity, you can use this policy to choose the level of reporting you want to see on your screen.
The value is nominally in the range 1-10 with a value of 1 showing few messages and a value of 10 showing almost all messages. The default value is 5.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Bullets |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Bullets |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates that alphabetic bullets/lists are expected. The program will
recognises (and distinguishes between) upper and lower case variants.
Sometimes lines that begin with a single letter are wrongly interpreted as an alphabetic bullet point, especially if it's followed by a punctuation character. In such cases you can either disable this policy, or edit your source code so that the single letter no longer appears at the start of a line.
See also :-
Expect numbered bullets
Expect roman numeral bullets
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> General layout |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates that paragraphs are expected to have blank lines before them. Where
this isn't true (e.g. on a text file dumped from Word) different paragraph
detection algorithms have to be applied, which tend to be more error prone.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Headings |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Headings |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates whether or not a line that is wholly capitalised should be
regarded as a section heading. Capitalised headings will normally only be used
if there do not seem to be any numbered or underlined headings.
See also :-
Expect numbered headings
Expect underlined headings
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> File Structure |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "BEGIN/END_CODE" |
Indicates that the document is liable to contain samples of program code.
The program will attempt to detect such code fragments, and preserve their
layout so that the code remains comprehensible, however this process can be
flawed, and often code samples are rendered as ordinary text.
Where the program fails to detect the full extent of your code samples, you can add the BEGIN_CODE ... END_CODE pre-processor commands before and after the sample in your source document.
You can choose how code fragments are marked up by using the Use <CODE>..</CODE> markup policy, although this is not generally suitable for multi-line samples.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Contents |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Contents List |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "BEGIN/END_CONTENTS" |
Indicates whether or not the source file contains an existing contents list.
This should be detected automatically, but sometimes the analysis fails in which case you should either set this manually, or mark up the contents list in the source file using the BEGIN_CONTENTS ... END_CONTENTS pre-processor commands.
See also :-
Add contents list
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Headings |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Headings |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates whether or not a line that begins with capitalised text may be regarded as an "embedded" section heading. Embedded headings will normally only be used if there do not seem to be any numbered or underlined headings.
See also :-
Expect numbered headings
Expect underlined headings.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Table Analysis |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
When auto-detecting the column structure of tables, the software has to
decide wether the column boundaries are, and in doing this it looks for
character positions that appear to contain mostly blank or non-text characters.
The analysis can have problems if the table has a lot of data that spans multiple columns (in HTML this would require a COLSPAN value to merge the cells together). Tables with complex headers (e.g. financial tables merging results from many sources) or with internal headers often have this feature.
If you have such tables and find that the analysis is failing to detect your columns (commonly merging columns together), try enabling this option which will relax the definition of what constitutes such a table.
In such cases you should also review your use of the Column merging factor and Ignore table header during analysis policies.
This appears on-screen as "Expect cells that span multiple columns"
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Headings |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Headings |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates whether or not lines that begin with section numbers should be
regarded as section headings. Checks will be made to ensure that numbers
are in a valid sequence, occur at the correct indentation, and are properly
placed in the file. This reduces the error rate that would occur by assuming
that every line beginning with a number is a heading.
See also :-
Expect capitalised headings
Expect underlined headings
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Bullets |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Bullets |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates that numerical bullets are expected (but you probably guessed that).
Normally detected during analysis. Numbered bullets are often just numbered
lists in the source file.
Sometimes numbered bullets and numbered headings get confused and it is necessary to enable one and disable the other.
See also :-
Expect numbered headings
Expect alphabetic bullets
Expect roman numeral bullets
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Bullets |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Bullets |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates that roman numerals bullets/lists are to be expected. The program
supports both upper and lower case variants.
See also :-
Expect alphabetic bullets
Expect numbered bullets
| Possible values | Yes/No (but don't use this) |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Headings |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Headings |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This is a reserved policy that may be removed at some time in the future. When enabled, this policy indicates that the heading may be a numbered heading, but that the number is in the second (or perhaps third) word in the heading.
For example in the case of the following heading
Section 2.3.4 - This is the next section
the section number "2.3.4" isn't at the start of the line, but instead follows the word "Section". This can still be counted as a numbered heading, with result that it can be checked to see that it is in sequence etc, etc.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Headings |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Headings |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates whether or not a line that is underlined should be regarded as a section heading.
A line is deemed to be "underlined" if the next line in the source file consists solely of "line" characters like "-_+=~", and is a similar length to the previous line. If the lengths are not similar, then such a line will be treated as a line in its own right, becoming a <HR> in HTML.
See also :-
Expect numbered headings
Expect capitalised headings
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Table Analysis |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_MAY_BE_SPARSE" |
Indicates that tables within the source document may be sparse, that is they
may contain a large number of "empty" cells. This fact will then be used
to adjust the analysis of any tables detected.
For example, by default columns which appear to have little or no data in them are usually eliminated by merging them with their more populated neighbours.
If you set this policy, this process is relaxed, meaning that you will get more, emptier, columns rather than fewer, more filled ones.
This policy can be toggled for individual tables via the pre-processor command TABLE_MAY_BE_SPARSE placed between BEGIN_TABLE ... END_TABLE commands placed before and after the table.
| Possible values | Local file to receive any external contents list |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Contents |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Contents List |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
When you select to Generate external contents file, this is the name of
the external content file generated by the program.
By default the file will be called contents_<filename>.html.
The contents file should be in the same directory as the created HTML files.
| Possible values | 1,2,3... but best left alone |
| Default value | 1 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Headings |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Headings |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates the chapter number of the first numbered section in a file
containing numbered sections (see Expect numbered headings).
Normally this starts at 0 or 1, but if it starts higher, then the program will reject headers as being out of sequence, and fail to detect to presence or absence of contents lists correctly.
Only for the advanced/foolhardy user.
| Possible values | Integer - 1,2, etc. |
| Default value | 1 |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
This specified the "page number" of the main document that you initially want shown in the main frame of the FRAMESET.
When converting large documents you can choose to split them into many smaller pages. Often such documents have a contents list as the sole content of the first page, and inside a FRAMES document his has the unfortunate side-effect of displaying a contents list in the main frame next to a contents list in the contents frame. In such cases you might choose to start by initially displaying the second page in the main frame. That's what this policy is for.
See also :-
split level
| Possible values | Size in "blocks" of indent (aka tab positions) |
| Default value | 0 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF |
| Menu location | (only available by editing policy file) |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies the size in tab positions of the indentation of the first line
of a paragraph with respect to the left margin of the paragraph.
This policy was originally intended for use in RTF where such styling is commoner, but is now applied to HTML generation as well.
| Possible values | "<face>, <Type>, <size>, <prop>, <serif>, <charset>" |
| Default value | "Courier New, Regular, 12" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Fonts |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This tells the program what font should be used for any fixed-format, non-proportional text such as diagrams, code samples etc. The default font size will differ slightly between RTF and HTML generation (10pt and 12pt respectively).
The value is a comma separated list which has the same format as that described in the Default Font policy.
| Possible values | -nn, 0, +nn |
| Default value | 0 |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | (only available by editing policy file) |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies a scaling factor to be applied when calculating the space taken up by text rendered in the prevailing font. The software attempts to calculate this from the text and the font size and bolding, but in reality there is quite a variety which means sometimes these calculations are inaccurate.
In normal text, this isn't a problem, but inside tables - especially when generating RTF - getting the width wrong can force lines to wrap, or generate too much white space. The same problem can occur when setting pixel widths in HTML (which is a bad idea for exactly this reason).
If the table widths are looking wrong, use this policy to adjust the space allowed for text. A value of +10 will increase the space by 10%, a value of -10 will decrease the space.
| Possible values | HTML Colours |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames -> Frame colours |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
See discussion in Header frame background colour.
| Possible values | Size in pixels or as a percentage |
| Default value | 100 |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
If a footer frame is generated, this specifies its depth. The default is 100 pixels. To specify a percentage, add the % sign on the end, e.g. "20%"
See also :-
Header Frame depth
Contents Frame width
| Possible values | HTML Colours |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames -> Frame colours |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
See discussion in Header frame background colour.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | n/a |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> File generation |
| Command line option | /LIST and /DEBUG |
| Related directives | n/a |
This policy specifies whether or not diagnostics files should be
produced. This has exactly the same effect as the /DEBUG qualifier
has in command line versions.
The files created are:-
- a .lis1 file created during analysis. This shows how the program interprets each line before any analysis policies have been set.
- a .lis file created during output. This shows how the program interpreted each line during conversion after any analysis policies had been set.
This file gives the best explanation of how the conversion proceeded.
- a .stats file. Only generated for debugging purposes, showing the statistics collected by the program when performing its analysis.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Contents |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Contents list |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies whether any generated contents list should be placed
in a separate file, as opposed to at the top of the output file.
This option is not always possible, specifically when an existing contents list is being used, or when the source is being split into many files. In such cases it will be ignored.
See also :-
External contents list filename
| Possible values | yes/no |
| Default value | no |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF help file |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Make Help File |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
(Only applies to RTF generation)
When selected, AscToRTF will create a new Help Compiler project file for you. This file will have the same name as your source file but with a .hpj extension. If this option is selected it will overwrite any existing project file, so take care in using it.
You will need a copy of the Help Compiler Workshop (HCW.EXE) from Microsoft in order to load and execute the created project file.
See also :-
| Possible values | "<face>, <Type>, <size>, <prop>, <serif>, <charset>" |
| Default value | "Times New Roman, Regular, 12" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Fonts |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This tells the program what font should be used for any headings. The font size will be ignored, instead headings will be sized relative to the default font.
The value is a comma separated list which has the same format as that described in the Default Font policy.
| Possible values | Comma-separated list of key words and phrases in quotes |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Headings |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Headings |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Updated in 4.2
If specified, then any line that begins with one of the key phrases will be regarded as a heading. The syntax is
<details>, <details>...
where each set of details is
<details> = <phrases>, [<heading_level>]
and
<phrases> = <phrase_1> [|<phase_2>]
That is, each set of <details> can optionally specify a <heading_level>. If omitted this will default to 1,2,3 for the first, second, third set of details etc. Note, this is a logical heading level, and will be apparent in the contents list. In HTML this may not actually map onto <H1>, <H2> etc (see Largest allowed <Hn> tag and smallest allowed <Hn> tag
Each set of <details> must supply a set of <phrases>, and each set of phrases would must have at least one phrase with extra phrases added if wanted, separated by vertical bars.
So for example
Part, Chapter, Section
would treat lines beginning with the words "Part", "Chapter" and "Section" as level 1,2, and 3 headings (although in HTML <H1> markup probably won't be used).
The key phrases are case-sensitive in order to reduce the likelihood of false matches with lines that just happen to have these phrases at the start of the line. So
PART|Part, Chapter, Section
Would allow either "PART" or "Part" to be matched.
"PART|Part,1" , "Chapter,2" , "Section,2"
Would make lines beginning with "Part" level-1 headings, while both "Chapter" and "Section" would become level 2. This would be the same as
"PART|Part,1" , "Chapter|Section,2"
Note, spaces may form part of a match phrase, but because of their use in the tag syntax commands and vertical bars may not.
If false matches occur, (e.g. the word "Part" appears in the body of the text) edit the source text so that the offending word is no longer at the start of the line.
| Possible values | A space-separated increasing series of tab positions, | |
| starting at 0 (e.g. | "0 4 8") | |
| Default value | 0 | |
| Policy scope | Fixed analysis policy | |
| Policy file section | Analysis | |
| Menu location | Conversion options | > Analysis policies -> Analysis |
| Command line option | n/a | |
| Related directives | n/a | |
These values indicate the offsets at which definition paragraphs are expected
| Possible values | HTML colours |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Style |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates what colour to use for all the headings marked up in <Hn> markup.
Not all browsers support this.
In HTML 4.0 this is better handled via CSS, rather than placing explicit colour markup on each heading.
| Possible values | HTML Colours |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames -> Frame colours |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
The program allows you to independently set the background and colour of each frame in a FRAMESET. The default behaviour is that each frame will match the colours set for the main document using the policies
You can override this behaviour using the frame colouring policies
Header frame background colour
Header frame text colour
Contents frame background colour
Contents frame text colour
Footer frame background colour
Footer frame text colour
| Possible values | Size in pixels or as a percentage |
| Default value | 100 |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
If a header frame is generated, this specifies its depth. The default is 100 pixels. To specify a percentage, add the % sign on the end, e.g. "20%"
See also :-
Contents Frame width
Footer Frame depth
| Possible values | HTML Colours |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames -> Frame colours |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
See discussion in Header frame background colour.
| Possible values | HTML Colours |
| Default value | "FFFFE0" |
| Policy scope | fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Style |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
This is the background colour used for the main body of each topic. This is the scrolling section that makes up the majority of the topic window.
See also :-
| Possible values | Citation text |
| Default value | "". Evaluation version adds a JafSoft citation. |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF help file |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Make Help File |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
(Only applies to RTF generation)
This is the "citation" text added to your help project file. This text is displayed anytime someone prints or pastes topics from your WinHelp file.
See also :-
| Possible values | Copyright text |
| Default value | "". Evaluation version places adds a JafSoft copyright |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF help file |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Make Help File |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
(Only applies to RTF generation)
This is the copyright notice placed in your WinHelp project file and so attached to your help file.
See also :-
| Possible values | HTML Colours |
| Default value | "Silver" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF help file |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Make Help File |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
(Only applies to RTF generation)
This is the background colour used for the title text of each topic. This is the non-scrolling section at the top of each topic page.
See also :-
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Style |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies whether or not the definition term of each definition detected
(the part marked up in <DT> ... </DT>) should be placed in bold for greater
emphasis.
| Possible values | Local file containing HTML code to be used as footer |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Title, description etc. |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Identifies the name of a text include file to be transcribed into the HTML
file at the bottom of the <BODY> ... </BODY> portion of each generated HTML
page. Because this file is just copied into the HTML, the file should normally
include HTML tags, rather than plain text.
This can be used to add "return to home page" links, and contact addresses to your HTML pages. Again, this helps to give a consistent "look and feel" when breaking your document up into a number of smaller HTML files.
See also :-
HTML header file
| Possible values | Local file containing HTML fragment definitions |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Config Files |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Configuration Files |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "DEFINE_HTML_FRAGMENT" and "RESET_HTML_FRAGMENT" |
Identifies the name of a text file which defines HTML "fragments" that may be used in the HTML generation. These fragments can be used to customize elements such as horizontal rules and page navigation features generated by the software. The definitions must be written as HTML inside pre-processor styled HTML fragment blocks.
See the Tag manual section on Using HTML fragments
and the pre-processor commands :-
"DEFINE_HTML_FRAGMENT"
"RESET_HTML_FRAGMENT"
| Possible values | Local file containing HTML code to be used as header |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Title, description etc. |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Identifies the name of a text include file to be transcribed into
the HTML file at the top of the <BODY> ... </BODY> portion of the
generated HTML page. Because this file is just copied into the HTML,
the file should normally include HTML tags, rather than plain text.
This can be used to add standard headers, logos, contact addresses to your HTML pages, and is especially useful to give a consistent "look and feel" when breaking your document up into a number of smaller HTML files.
See also :-
HTML footer file
| Possible values | Local file containing JavaScript fragment you want embedding |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Title, description etc. |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Identifies the name of a text include file to be transcribed into the
<HEAD> ... </HEAD> portion of the generated HTML page.
This allows you to place JavaScript in your pages (though you'll be a little limited as to what it can act on).
You could also use this to embed a style sheet in the header.
| Possible values | "HTML 3.2", "HTML 4.0 Transitional", "HTML 4.0 Strict" |
| Default value | "HTML 4.0 Transitional" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | File generation |
| Menu location | (only available by editing policy file) |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies the version of HTML to be generated. Older versions of HTML are
more widely viewable in browsers, while newer versions support use
of style sheets and more sophisticated layout.
Depending on the version of HTML selected, different features may or may not be supported. For example the implementation of fonts inside tables cannot simultaneously support version 3 and 4 browsers in all flavours of HTML. Also the use of certain entities (like the Euro symbol) is disallowed in earlier versions of HTML.
The generation of "HTML 4.0 Strict" is not yet supported.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Contents |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Contents List |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Whenever a file has numbered sections, and a contents list is being created,
this indicates whether the hyperlink taking you to the section should be placed
on the number or the section title in the contents list
The default is to place the hyperlink on the section title.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Style |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies whether or not multiple blank lines ("white space") in the source
file should be ignored.
Normally HTML ignores white space, but if this policy is disabled then additional blank lines will be marked up as <BR>. That means that a large gap in the source file will translate to a large gap in the HTML file.
If you wish to eliminate white space from your output, switch this off. You should also review the Use <P> markup for paragraphs policy
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Table Analysis |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_IGNORE_HEADER" |
Indicates that when analysing a table to determine the column positions the
table header should be ignored. Some tables have complex headers that can
affect the analysis when looking for column boundaries. By setting this value
the first few lines are ignored during the analysis (if the header size
if set, then this is the number of lines ignored).
This policy can be toggled for individual tables via the pre-processor command TABLE_IGNORE_HEADER placed between BEGIN_TABLE ... END_TABLE commands placed before and after the table.
| Possible values | Space-separated list of SECTION names |
| Default value | "" (which is the same as "ALL") |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Preprocessor |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Preprocessor |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "SECTION" |
The program allows pre-processor commands to divide a document into sections
using the SECTION command. (This is quite separate from the detection of
section headings in the source document).
The point of the SECTION command is to mark up parts of the document that may optionally be included or omitted from the conversion, e.g. to allow the same source document to generate different output for different audiences.
This policy tells the programs which section types are to be included in the conversion. The name(s) supplied should match that in the SECTION directive(s), and should be one-word.
A value of "all" indicates that all section types should be converted.
The value may be a space-separated list of section names. Each section name must be a single word (underscores are allowed though).
For more details, read the main program documentation.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Directory |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Directory List |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
If a contents list is being generated, then this Specifies whether or not
the contents list should be shown at multiple indent levels, with
sub-sections indented relative to sections etc.
If disabled, all the contents hyperlinks will be at the same indentation level, one level in from any file titles shown.
| Possible values | A series of increasing integer values, starting at 0 |
| Default value | 0 |
| Policy scope | Fixed analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Analysis |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
These are the positions of the major indent levels in the document. This should be a list of ascending space-separated numbers, with "0" usually being the first value.
Text in the source file will be output at a level of indentation calculated by comparing the source line's left margin with the values set here. The TAB Size may form part of this calculation if tabs are present.
For example a line with 6 spaces at the start will be placed as follows
"0"
- left margin
"0 4 8"
- one level of indent (>4 but 6<)
"0 2 4 6"
- three levels of indent (>2, >4 and >=6)
"0 8" - left margin (<8)
In practice a little rounding up is allowed.
The program will attempt to calculate the correct indentation pattern, and will reject consecutive positions, e.g. "0 1 2" wouldn't be accepted.
Note, a value of "0" by itself will suppress all indentation in the output.
| Possible values | Local input directory (don't normally use this) |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | n/a |
| Menu location | Main screen |
| Command line option | the first argument of the command line |
| Related directives | n/a |
In principle this policy allows the source directory to be specified. In
practice the source directory is usually implied from the source file.
In the Windows version the input directory can be explicitly set on the main screen.
It is nor recommended that you include this policy line in any policy files you create.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> File Structure |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies that the input file has page markers. Such pages are assumed to
be form feeds <FF>.
Together with the Page marker size (in lines) policy, you can get the program to ignore the next few lines after a page marker. This can be used to remove lines at the top of each page from the source document as viewed by the program.
This removal, however is far from perfect given that
- source documents may also have "footers" before the page marker
- the page marker might not be a <FF>
- the header/footer can be variable sizes depending on where the page boundary falls as regards paragraphs and section headings.
It is hoped to improve these algorithms after V4.0 is released.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> File Structure |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates that the input file contains change bars. Change bars indicate those
lines which have had text changed since the last version. THis is usually
indicated by a vertical bar '|' in the left or right border.
Where such characters are detected, they will be removed (as they will make no sense in HTML) and the "changed" text will be highlighted in red.
The program may auto-detect the presence of change bars, but if this gets confused (e.g. by quote characters in email, or .signature files) you may need to set this policy manually.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> File Structure |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates that the input file contains DOS characters, especially line-drawing
characters. When set, the program will convert these characters into line
characters (i.e. "=", '-', '|' or '+') that may then be interpreted as
parts of table or diagrams.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> File Structure |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates that the input file contains Japanese, Chinese or Korean characters. The program is designed to convert and understand ASCII characters. As such it is best suited to European languages.
If this policy is set, the program will avoid certain types of character transformations, and will adjust - where possible - its analysis to allow for the presence of 2-byte oriental characters.
Please note, AscToHTM's understanding of Japanese text structure is virtually non-existent, we don't really advocate the program's use in this way.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> File Structure |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
The software has some ability to detect files that contain Unicode characters or which are themselves encoded using Unicode. Where Unicode is detected on input, and UTF-8 file will be created as output, and extra care will be taken when processing file not to split any of the multi-byte character values.
This should be automatically detected, but may sometimes needs to be set manually.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> File Structure |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates that, as seen by the program, the input file is double spaced. That
is, every second line is blank.
This can be the case if
- the file was produced by an old program
- the file was produced from a "print" file
- the file was copied from a machine using a different operating system.
The conversion will look quite different if every second line is thought to be blank. If you set this policy, every second blank line will be ignored.
Eventually it is hoped to make detection of such files automatically, but currently (V4.0) this is not the case.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> File Structure |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates that the input file contains some MIME encoding. This will commonly
be the case in text saved or copied from mail messages. Mime encoding
will appear as "=" characters protecting special characters, and breaking
long lines into shorter lines less likely to be rejected by mail protocols.
The presence of Mime encoding should be auto-detected.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> File Structure |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates that the input file contains PCL printer codes. When set, the program will make whatever sensible use it can of these codes, otherwise they will be removed.
Please note that the PCL printer codes offer a rich command language that may be used to drive graphical printers. As such the emulation possibilities in a text converter are limited, and it is quite likely that files that make heavy use of such codes will fail dramatically to convert.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Main screen, or Analysis -> File Structure |
| Command line option | /SIMPLE |
| Related directives | n/a |
This tells the program to suppress much of its advanced searches for structure.
This should be used when converting short documents that don't really have numbered sections, bullets, tables etc but which might look to the program as though they do (e.g. because they contain addresses, lists or tables of consecutive numbers)
A simple conversion will preserve much of your line structure and convert URLS to hyperlinks, but it won't add much else.
This option is equivalent to adding /SIMPLE to the command line.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Table generation |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Tables |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
The software can look for horizontal lines in the input text of a table as signs of row separators. Normally when these are detected, the program will use them to decide how to allocate the input text into rows, but will then discard the lines themselves from the output.
Sometimes, however such lines are useful, and on occasion these lines may be being misinterpreted. either way, this policy allows you to specify that any horizontal lines found in the input should be replicated in the output, and not discarded.
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "English (United States)" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> RTF Settings |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to RTF generation)
For conversions to RTF only, this specifies the document's language. This is relevant for spell checking and the like.
| Possible values | 1 (largest) - 5 (smallest) |
| Default value | 2 |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Style |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Together with Smallest allowed <Hn> tag these policies allow you to
control the heading sizes <Hn> used to mark up any headings that are detected.
By default <H2> is used for main level headings, with each subsequent heading level being one size smaller, down to <H3> (normal text size).
The software will ignore these values if out of range, or if the largest value represents a smaller heading (larger Hn) that the "smallest" value.
| Possible values | Text | string |
| Default value | (see | below) |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy | |
| Policy file section | RTF | |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> RTF Settings | |
| Command line option | n/a | |
| Related directives | n/a | |
(Only applies to RTF generation)
For conversions to RTF only, this specifies size of margin at the left of the page. If omitted the Word default of 3.17 cm will be used.
| Possible values | Number or lines |
| Default value | 0 |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | File generation |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> File Structure |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies how many lines should be ignored at the end of the input file.
Use this if you are converting files from a source that adds a footer to each file that you don't want included in the conversion.
See also :-
Lines to ignore at start of file
| Possible values | Number or lines |
| Default value | 0 |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | File generation |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> File Structure |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies how many lines should be ignored at the top of the input file.
Use this if you are converting files from a source that adds a header to each file that you don't want included in the conversion.
See also :-
Lines to ignore at end of file
| Possible values | Local file containing Link Dictionary definitions |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Link Dictionary |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Configuration Files |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
reserved for future use
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> What to look for |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies that the program should attempt to detect, (and re-format) any MAIL
or USENET headers. These will be present if the file you are converting
- was originally an email or USENET post
- is an email digest
- is a FAQ written from a series of email responses.
Where such headers are detected, the Author, Subject and Date are looked for. If these are detected, the header is replaced by a Heading with this information formatted in a standard manner.
Where this occurs the new heading becomes available for any contents list that is generated.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> What to look for or Analysis -> Bullets |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies that the program should look for, and format, bullets and numbered
lists.
Disable this only if the program is wrongly formatting as bullets and lists things that are not. In such cases you could also consider reformatting your source file so that the "bullet" text no longer appears at the start of a line.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> What to look for |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies whether or not the software should attempt to detect alternative character sets, such as those used for languages such as Greek, Turkish, Chinese etc.
The software does this by doing a statistical analysis on the characters used in the source file. This process isn't perfect, and when it fails you will need to manually set the correct character set using the Character encoding policy.
If you find the program is wrongly detecting the character encoding, disable this policy and/or manually set it using the Character encoding policy
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> What to look for |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies whether or not regions of preformatted text that are detected should be considered as candidate diagrams.
If you find the program is wrongly treating tables as diagrams then disable this policy.
See also :-
Attempt TABLE generation
Expect code samples
Look for preformatted text
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> What to look for |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies that the program should look for, and format, horizontal lines as
separators. Such lines will be marked up as Rules, rather than as the original
character sequence.
See also :-
Minimum ruler length
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> What to look for |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies whether or not the program should look for, and attempt to format,
hanging paragraphs.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> What to look for |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies whether or not the program should look for, and attempt to
replicate, the pattern of indentation used in the file.
The program can detect the character positions used for different levels of indentation, and then use tags to implement this in the output. If this goes wrong, then text will be wrongly indented and (because of the tagging involved) unwanted vertical white space will often appear wherever the change in indent occurs. This can be especially true for the first lines of paragraphs (see new paragraph offset).
If you have such problems, disable this policy and the whole document will be left justified.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> What to look for |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies whether or not regions of preformatted text should be searched for.
If found, the program may attempt to detect
- tables
- ASCII art
- some other form of preformatted text
- software code fragments
If it decides the region is one of these, then special formatting will be applied.
If you find the program is wrongly treating text as formatted (this can be checked by looking for comments in the HTML code), then disable this policy.
See also :-
Attempt TABLE generation
Expect code samples
Look for diagrams
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> What to look for |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies whether or not the program should attempt to detect "quoted" text.
Quoted text will be placed in <EM> markup to emphasise the quoted text.
Quoted text is commonly found in email and USENET posts. If you find the program wrongly placing text in italics, try disabling this policy.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> What to look for |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies whether or not the program should look for "short lines". By default
the line structure of the source is not preserved, rather the program attempts
to preserve the paragraph structure. This results in a document that responds
better to changes in browser width.
However, the program recognises that lines that are short are probably intentionally so, and so it attempt to detect such lines and add a break on the end so that the line structure is preserved.
See also :-
Short line length
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> What to look for |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
Specifies that the program should attempt to detect any underlined text. Underlining will either take the form of a line of text followed by a similar length line of dashes (or other line characters), or of a phrase with underscores between each word, and at the start and end.
Examples:-
This is an underline line
-------------------------
... and this is an underlined phrase
Note, underlined lines may - depending on context, be regarded as underlined headings (see Expect Underlined headings)
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> What to look for |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies whether or not the program should look for white space, especially
when trying to detect paragraph boundaries.
You should usually leave this enabled, unless you want to explicitly place tags in the source text to markup paragraph boundaries.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Directory |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Directory List |
| Command line option | /INDEX=[<filename>] |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies whether or not you want a Directory page built. A Directory page
will contain hyperlinks to all files and sections within files that are
converted at the same time.
This normally only makes sense if you're using wildcard file specifications to convert multiple files at once.
This policy is equivalent to adding /INDEX=<filename> on the command line
| Possible values | yes/no |
| Default value | no |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Make help file |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
(Only applies to RTF generation)
For conversions to RTF only, this specifies that the output file should be formatted in a way suited to conversion into a Windows help file
AscToRTF can now be used to create RTF files suitable for use as source files when making a WinHelp help file. You can also get AscToRTF to create a Help Compiler project file (.hpj) for you, and tell it some of the things to put in that file. The policies available are
For more information see "Creating WinHelp files" in the AscToRTF documentation.
| Possible values | line length in characters |
| Default value | 256 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic Analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | n/a |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
This specifies the maximum length of line that could be considered as
a possible table line. Since some files output one paragraph per line,
it is possible for some text to contain a lot of the "markers" used to
detect table lines, and to be wrongly diagnosed as part of a table. This
value is set to prevent that happening.
The value should be set as low as reasonable for your files, however the current default value of 256 has been set to cope with observed legacy reports which were often designed to be printed on line printer paper
| Possible values | 0,1,2... |
| Default value | 0 (= "all") |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Contents |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Contents List |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies the number of levels of headings to show in any generated contents
lists. A value of "1" would only show chapter headings, a value of "2"
would also show the major sections etc, etc.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Hyperlinks |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Hyperlinks |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
(Only applies to HTML generation)
This option sets a limit on the length of headings used as titles for the generated HTML pages, or as hyperlinks in generated contents lists or directory pages.
When set to a non-zero value the heading text will be truncated back to the last end sentence period, or failing that space. When links are truncated, this is attempted to be at a word boundary, and the ellipsis "..." is added to indicate a truncated link.
This option can be useful when headings are very long, or when options such has Use first heading as title or use first line as heading or Use first line as Title are used on a file that places each paragraph on a single line (i.e. no line breaks). In such cases the whole first paragraph would be treated as a title/heading.
| Possible values | Any number of lines |
| Default value | -1 (none) |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | File generation |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> File generation -> Splitting into files |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This policy is only relevant when splitting the document into multiple,
smaller output files (see split level).
When a large source file is being split into many output HTML files, this policy specifies a minimum output HTML size in lines (although this is only approximate).
This can be useful for documents that have chapters where all the content is in the sub-sections. In such documents you'd end up with a virtually empty chapter heading file if this policy is not used.
| Possible values | Any number of lines |
| Default value | 8 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> General layout |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This specifies the minimum chapter size expected in the source document (in
numbers of lines). This is used by the program during analysis to ignore
any apparent Chapter headings that appear too close together.
In this way the program attempt to distinguish between 2 chapter headings, and 2 items on a numbered list.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | File generation |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> File generation -> Splitting into files |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This indicates that the created HTML file should be made as small as possible,
e.g. to reduce download times.
By default AscToHTM attempts to layout the created HTML code in an easy-to-read manner. This was done so that the created HTML would be easier to manually edit after creation.
To make the code easier to read, the program inserts white space to indent the code to match the output indentation levels. It also outputs each cell of a TABLE on its own line.
All this white space adds up, particularly the indentation of largely-empty cells in TABLES. If you select this option, all the extra white space is eliminated.
Depending on the file contents, this can make the file 5-20% smaller (and hence faster to download), at a cost of readability.
Of course, this benefit is only really worth it when converting larger files.
| Possible values | Min. number of space characters between columns 1,2,3 |
| Default value | 1 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Table Analysis |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_MIN_COLUMN_SEPARATION" |
Specifies the minimum number of spaces that may be interpreted as a
column separator in a table.
The default value is 1, but in small tables this can lead to too many "columns" being detected. If you experience this problem try increasing this value to 2 or higher.
| Possible values | Any number of lines. |
| Default value | 1 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Pre-formatted |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Preformatted text |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "BEGIN/END_PRE" |
Specifies the minimum number of consecutive lines that must appear
pre-formatted before they can be placed in their own <PRE> ... </PRE> sections.
Pre-formatted text, once detected is analysed to see if it is
- a table
- a diagram
- some code samples
- some other form of pre-formatted text
See also :-
Attempt TABLE generation
| Possible values | Number of characters > 0 |
| Default value | 4 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> General layout or Analysis -> What to look for |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies the minimum length of any line to be considered as a horizontal rule
when the program is looking for such lines (see Look for horizontal rulers)
Lines in the source text that consist only of "rule-like" characters, and which exceed this minimum length will be marked up as Rules, rather than as the original character sequence.
See also :-
Minimum ruler length
| Possible values | yes/no |
| Default value | no |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> RTF Settings |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to RTF generation)
For conversions to RTF only, this specifies that the left and right margin sizes should be swapped on odd and even page numbers.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Tagging |
| Menu location | (only available by editing policy file) |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
A diagnostic policy that specifies that HTML tag generation should be monitored
for correctness. This will check that each tag has a matching end tag (where
required), and that tags are not incorrectly nested.
This shouldn't normally be necessary, but can sometimes help locate HTML errors when extra HTML is embedded in the source file and interacts unfavourably with the HTML generated by the software.
| Possible values | A number of characters |
| Default value | -1 (none) |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> General layout |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This specifies the size of any hanging indent expected on the first line
of each paragraph. It is quite common, e.g. when saving Word for Windows
files, to find the first line of each paragraph indented relative to the
rest of the text. This specifies the size of that indent.
Although this is normally detected automatically, in smaller documents this can sometimes fail, with the result that the first line may be indented with respect to the rest of the paragraph. Unfortunately, this can also introduce a blank line between the first and subsequent lines. If this happens either change this value, or cancel all indentation by setting the value of Indent position(s)
See also :-
preserve new paragraph offset
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "other" |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Hyperlinks |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Hyperlinks |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies that where hyperlinks are to be opened in a new browser window,
what the name of that window should be.
See the discussion in Open links in new browser window
| Possible values | Name of browser window to open clicked hyperlinks in |
| Default value | _top |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
When an "external" hyperlink is clicked on from inside a generated FRAMESET and the policy Open frame links in new window is enabled, this is the name of the browser window to be used as the target for the link.
You can specify any name you like, but the default is the reserved browser window name "_top" which will cause the current window to be used, thereby replacing all the FRAMESET currently on display (this will re-appear if you press the BACK button)
See also :-
Open frame links in new window
| Possible values | URL of NOFRAMES links |
| Default value | Defaults to URL of first page generated |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
When the Add NOFRAMES links policy is enabled, this is the URL that is used in the visible NOFRAMES hyperlink added to the contents frame.
If left blank (the default) this link will point to the first HTML page that would normally be displayed in the main frame.
You should only really need to use this if you have created an independent set on non-FRAMES pages that you'd like to link to instead.
See also :-
Add NOFRAMES links
| Possible values | 0,1,2,3 or 4 |
| Default value | 0 (= "all") |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
When a generated contents list is placed in a contents frame, this policy specifies how many levels of heading you want shown there.
In large, complex documents there can be up to 4 levels of heading. Whilst in a normal contents list you'd want to see most of these, in a FRAMES document space (width) is tight and you don't really want to have to scroll the left frame. In such cases you may want to limit the amount of detail in the contents frame.
The default value "0" is interpreted as "all", i.e. a full contents list will be generated.
| Possible values | 1,2,3... |
| Default value | 4 |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Headings |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> File generation -> Splitting into files |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
When splitting a large document into files a new file will be created each time a suitable heading is reached. If the heading is underlined or capitalised (as opposed to numbered), the first few words of the heading will be included in the filename.
This policy determines how many words from the title should be used.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | File generation |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Title etc (and click on the Advanced button) |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
The policy specifies that the HTML generated should not contain any <BODY> and <HTML> tags, nor should it contain a <HEAD> section. The resulting file won't be a proper HTML file, but it can be copied directly into and existing HTML file without further editing.
This policy is set automatically in the Windows version of the software whenever the clipboard is used as the output destination. That way the generated HTML can be directly pasted wherever you want.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Hyperlinks |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Hyperlinks |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates whether or not only ftp links with an explicit "ftp://" should
be converted into FTP hyperlinks.
The program can detect web addresses that don't begin with http:// or www. Such addresses are often - but not always - FTP sites. This policy determines whether or not such addresses should be taken as FTP sites or now.
If enabled then "penguin.mit.edu" would become an FTP link.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
Specifies that when generating FRAMES, the pages generated should only be viewed in frames, that is they shouldn't be viewed as individual pages. This is achieved by adding JavaScript to the HTML that will cause the browser to re-load the master frame whenever the page is viewed by itself.
You might want this behaviour if you find people coming to individual pages directly (e.g. form a search engine). On the other hand some people might not like this behaviour, and in a large document it may be difficult for people to re-locate within the frames the page that first drew their attention.
If you select this option, then you will have to provide a separate NOFRAMES link. This is because the default NOFRAMES link is to the first page, but when this option is selected that first page would contain JavaScript that would place it back into frames.
In such cases you might want to convert the file twice - once with frames, once without - and use the name of the non-frames version as a NOFRAMES link
See also :-
NOFRAMES link URL
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Hyperlinks |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Hyperlinks |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates whether or not only newsgroups from known hierarchies
should be converted into news: hyperlinks.
The program can detect possible newsgroups by looking for words like "something.like.this" and "news.answers". However assuming these are newsgroups often leads to errors.
Consequently if this policy is enabled then candidate newsgroups have to belong to either a standard USENET hierarchy such as "alt", "comp", "sci" etc, or to a user-specified USENET hierarchy (see Recognised USENET groups).
If disabled then "something.like.this" will be turned into a news: hyperlink.
This policy only takes effect if Create NEWS links is enabled.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
This specifies that whenever the user clicks on an "External" hyperlink inside a set of generated FRAMES, a new window should be opened, rather than displaying the selected page inside the current FRAMESET.
Note, the program distinguishes between "internal" links to other parts of the same converted document (be they in a different HTML page or whatever) and "external" links to URLs nothing to do with the current conversion. Thus a link to www.jafsoft.com will create a new window, but a link to section 3.2 will not.
See also :-
New frame link window name
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Hyperlinks |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Hyperlinks |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies that where hyperlinks are added to the HTML, the target window for
these links should be a new window. This means that when you click on these
links a new window is opened, and the original window continues to display the
original document. If you don't select this policy, the new document replaces
the old document in the current browser window.
See also :-
New browser window name
| Possible values | Local output directory (don't normally set this) |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | n/a |
| Menu location | Main Screen |
| Command line option | /OUT=<filespec> |
| Related directives | n/a |
In principle this policy allows the output directory to be specified. In
practice the output directory usually defaults to the input directory, or
is set by the user via the user interface or the command line.
In the Windows version the output directory can be explicitly set on the main screen.
It is nor recommended that you include this policy line in any policy files you create.
| Possible values | File extension to be used for generated files |
| Default value | ".html" or ".rtf" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | File generation |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> File generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This policy specifies an alternative extension to be used for the created
files. For example you may want the program to create ".shtml" files.
If present, this policy overrides that set in the Use .HTM extension policy.
| Possible values | name of main FRAMESET document |
| Default value | Input filename with "_frame.html" appended |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
This specifies the name of the HTML file which will contain the FRAMESET tags that define the layout and contents of the FRAMES. If omitted the default behaviour is to append "_frame" to the filename. For example myfile.txt would generate
myfile_frame.html ! FRAMESET myfile_contents_frame.html ! (optional) contents frame myfile_header_frame.html ! (optional) header frame myfile_footer_frame.html ! (optional) footer frame
and then
| myfile.html | ! first main frame page | ||
| myfile_1.html | ! (optional) second main frame page | ||
| myfile_2.html | ! (optional) third main frame page |
| Possible values | Local file to contain log of conversion(s) |
| Default value | "AscToHTM.log" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | n/a |
| Menu location | (only available by editing policy file) |
| Command line option | /LOG=<filespec> |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies the name of any log file to be created.
See also :-
Create a log file
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | n/a |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> File Generation -> General |
| Command line option | /POLICY=<file> |
| Related directives | n/a |
This policy allows you to specify that you want the program to output the
file policy that is being used. This will be a combination of the
policy calculated by the program during the analysis pass, and any
user-supplied policy lines.
The output policy file will have a .pol extension in the output directory.
This policy has the same effect as the command line qualifier /POLICY.
| Possible values | Local file to be generated with calculate policies documented |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | n/a |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> File generation -> General |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
reserved
NOT YET IMPLEMENTED?
| Possible values | Number of characters. Typically 65-100 |
| Default value | 80 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> General layout |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Used to set the nominal page width of the input text. This doesn't affect the output directly, but the page width is used in a number of calculation used to determine other effects which do affect the rendering. These include
| Possible values | Number of Lines in page header |
| Default value | 0 |
| Policy scope | Fixed analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> File Structure |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies the size of any "headers" that occur after new page characters in the
source text. These headers can be ignored for the purposes of conversion,
although the process is currently far from perfect.
See the discussion in Input file has page markers
| Possible values | "A4", "Letter", "Legal" or "Executive" |
| Default value | "A4" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF Settings |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> RTF Settings |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This only applies to RTF generation.
This specifies the paper size. Depending on the application you use to view the RTF files, this may be used when printing the document, and the value selected will affect the paging of the document. It will also be used during printing.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames |
| Command line option | /FRAMES |
| Related directives | n/a |
This policy allows you to specify that you want your document output in HTML frames. The program will create a HTML page with the necessary <FRAMESET> tags.
Once selected, a large number of supporting policies offer control over the FRAMES-generation process. In addition you can use the program's HTML fragments feature to control what gets placed in each frame.
FRAMES policies available include :-
- Output frame name
- Header Frame depth
- Footer Frame depth
- Contents Frame width
- Use main header in header frame
- Use main footer in footer frame
- Add contents frame if possible
- Add Frame border
- Open frame links in new window
- New frame link window name
- Add NOFRAMES links
- NOFRAMES link URL
- Number of levels in contents frame
- First frame page number
- Header frame background colour
- Header frame text colour
- Contents frame background colour
- Contents frame text colour
- Footer frame background colour
- Footer frame text colour
FRAMES production is only applicable to HTML generation.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed analysis policy |
| Policy file section | File Generation |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> File generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates that the whole file structure should be preserved by placing the
file inside <PRE>...</PRE> markup. This will result in very little file
conversion occurring.
You should only want to use this if the file has lots of pre-formatted text which the program is interpreting wrongly. Examples might be email digests of RFC's, although in both cases good results can be achieved with a little work.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | File Generation |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> File generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates that the line structure of the file should be preserved. This
will be done by adding a <BR> to each line from the source file.
Use this if you want the output program to have the same line structure as the original, instead of allowing paragraphs of text to wrap. You might want to do this if you want to preserve an "A4" look and feel to the page.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> General layout |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This specifies that if a hanging indent is found on the first line of each paragraph it should be preserved in the output.
See also :-
new paragraph offset
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Headings |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> HTML styling |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies that those headings that are underlined should keep their underlining
in the output. Sometimes you want the underlining to signify the previous
line is a heading, but don't necessarily want that heading underlined in the
output.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Bullets |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Bullets |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies that the hyphen character by itself at the start of a line should
be treated as signifying a bullet point.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Bullets |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Bullets |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies that the letter 'o' by itself at the start of a line should
be treated as signifying a bullet point. This is a fairly common practice,
especially in text documents exported from other software packages.
| Possible values | Space separated list or USENET hierarchy roots |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Hyperlinks |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Hyperlinks |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This policy allows you to specify USENET hierarchies that you wish to
recognize in addition to the standard hierarchies. The value is a space
separated list of the top level hierarchy names. So, for example, to
ensure that uk.telecom and demon.ip.support are recognised as
valid newsgroup hyperlinks, set the policy value as follows:-
Recognised USENET groups : uk demon
This policy only takes effect if Create NEWS links is enabled.
| Possible values | Text | string |
| Default value | (see | below) |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy | |
| Policy file section | RTF | |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> RTF Settings | |
| Command line option | n/a | |
| Related directives | n/a | |
(Only applies to RTF generation)
For conversions to RTF only, this specifies size of margin at the right of the page. If omitted the Word default of 3.17 cm will be used.
| Possible values | One of the recognised rulesets |
| Default value | "(none)" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | n/a |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Merrill |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies the "ruleset" to be used. Rulesets are hard-coded sets of policies
set up to address particular types of documents.
This feature is expected to be used more in the future.
| Possible values | 1,2,3... |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | n/a |
| Menu location | (only available by editing policy file) |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
Only (currently) applies to RTF generation
Specifies how the "FO (font) tag" should be scoped - i.e. how far their influence should extend in the document. Options are
1
(Default) Scopes to the end of the document, or until
another FO tag is encountered.
2
Scopes to the end of the current paragraph, or until a
change of style (like a heading, table etc).
3 Scope only to the end of the current line
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> General layout and Analysis -> What to look for |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a or Analysis -> What to look for |
| See also | Definitions |
This policy can be used to disable the search for definitions (see
Definitions).
Use this whenever your file contains no definitions, but the program thinks
it does.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Style |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This policy specifies whether or not the program should look for emphasised
text. Text can be emphasised by placing asterisks (*) either side
of it, or underscores (_). The program will convert the enclosed text
to bold and italic respectively.
Both single words and phrases can be detected, however phrases spanning blank lines, or nested emphasis may not be correctly handled.
| Possible values | Number of characters. |
| Default value | -1 (none) |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> General layout |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This policy determines what constitutes a short line. The program may
add a line break to any line it deems to be short.
If omitted, a "short" line is determined as some fraction of the calculated page width. The fraction varies from 50-75% according to the conversion type being carried out.
If you set this value large, then all lines may be treated as short, preserving the line structure of the original. Conversely if you set it small, then very few lines will acquire a break.
| Possible values | URL of shortcut icon (e.g. a .ico) |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Title, description etc. |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
Identifies the URL of any icon to be used as a shortcut for this page. A META tag will be added to the HTML so that those browsers that support shortcut icons can use it.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Directory |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Directory List |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
When generating a directory page (see Make Directory), this specifies
whether or not there should be a hyperlink to the top of each file converted
(as opposed to just their contents).
If selected, the HTML file's title (see Document Title) will be shown as a hyperlink. If the file has no title, then the original filename is shown instead.
| Possible values | 1 (largest) - 5 (smallest) |
| Default value | 5 |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Style |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Together with Largest allowed <Hn> tag these policies allow you to control the heading sizes <Hn> used to mark up any headings that are detected.
By default <H2> is used for main level headings, with each subsequent heading level being one size smaller, down to <H3> (normal text size).
The software will ignore these values if out of range, or if the largest value represents a smaller heading (larger Hn) that the "smallest" value.
| Possible values | yes/no |
| Default value | no |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | File generation |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> File generation -> Splitting into files |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
HTML generation only
Specifies that the document should be split into smaller HTML pages at
the page markers.
The first file created normally has a name that matches the source file. Subsequent files append the page number (_1, _2...)
| Possible values | Section level. Usually 0,1 or 2. |
| Default value | -1 (none) |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | File generation |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> File generation -> Splitting into files |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Identifies the heading level (or depth) at which the generated HTML should
be split into smaller files.
A value of "none" will put all the HTML into one file.
| "1" | creates a new HTML file for each new major section. |
| "2" | creates a new HTML file for each new subsection |
| "3" | creates a new HTML file for each new sub-subsection |
The first file created normally has a name that matches the source file. Subsequent files append either the section number (for numbered sections), or the first word (for underlines or capitalised section headings), separated by underscores. If duplicate filenames are detected, then an extra number is appended to the name
Thus a file called MYDOC.TXT with numbered sections and this policy set to "2" will generate files called
MYDOC.HTML,
MYDOC_1.HTML,
MYDOC_1_1.HTML etc...
MYDOC_2.HTML
...
| Possible values | Name of a text file |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Fonts |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
(Only applies to RTF generation)
This is the name of a file containing a series of font and style definitions that can be referenced in FO tags in the source document to control the fonts used in the output document.
See The section titled "Style Definition File" in the AscToRTF manual for more details.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Document colours |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies that all colour markup should be suppressed. This means all other colour policies will be ignored, and no default colours will be added.
This can be useful when wanting to generate a page suitable for access by people with impaired vision. Selecting this option produces HTML which they can set the colours on using their browsers.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Messages |
| Menu location | Settings -> Diagnostic messages |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Suppresses all "INFO" messages from the display. These are messages deemed
to be "informational"
The severity (reporting level) will match how important/useful the seriousness of the warning.
Together with the Error Reporting Level policy, similar suppression policies and the /SILENT command qualifier, you have a fair degree of control of the level of reporting made visible during conversion.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Messages |
| Menu location | Settings -> Diagnostic messages |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Suppresses all "TAG ERROR" messages from the display. These are messages
reporting failure to implement inline tags and directives (if any) placed in
your source text.
However, you should really fix up all your tag errors if possible.
Together with the Error Reporting Level policy, similar suppression policies and the /SILENT command qualifier, you have a fair degree of control of the level of reporting made visible during conversion.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Messages |
| Menu location | Settings -> Diagnostic messages |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Suppresses all "URL" messages from the display. These are messages that report
the detection of URLs in the document being converted.
Together with the Error Reporting Level policy, similar suppression policies and the /SILENT command qualifier, you have a fair degree of control of the level of reporting made visible during conversion.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Messages |
| Menu location | Settings -> Diagnostic messages |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Suppresses all "WARNING" messages from the display. These are messages usually
reporting that the program has possibly done something you may not have wanted
it to, or not done something you might have wanted it to. For example if
lines that could contain emphasis or headings are rejected, a warning will
be issued.
The severity (reporting level) will match the seriousness of the warning.
Together with the Error Reporting Level policy, similar suppression policies and the /SILENT command qualifier, you have a fair degree of control of the level of reporting made visible during conversion.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Messages |
| Menu location | Settings -> Diagnostic messages |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Suppresses all "PROGRAM ERROR" messages from the display. These are messages
indicating that the program itself thinks it's done something wrong.
There's not much you can do about such errors, other than ignore them, or report them to the author so he can fix the software.
Together with the Error Reporting Level policy, similar suppression policies and the /SILENT command qualifier, you have a fair degree of control of the level of reporting made visible during conversion.
| Possible values | Tab size. Usually a multiple of 2 or 4 |
| Default value | 8 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> General layout |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies the size of TABs in your source document. During analysis the
program converts all tabs to spaces assuming using this tab size. This
becomes important only when comparing lines that use tabs to lines that
use spaces for alignment. If problems occur you may find
indentations appear strange, or tables are not quite right.
If you know your source file uses a different TAB size (e.g. Notepad files use a value of 4), try adjusting this policy.
| Possible values | 1-10 |
| Default value | 5 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Table Analysis |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
When detecting preformatted regions, this indicates the degree to which
lines adjacent should be included in the region.
A value of 10 means almost all adjacent lines will be included up to the nearest page break of heading. A value of 1 means virtually no lines will be included unless they too are clearly heavily formatted
| Possible values | "<face>, <Type>, <size>, <prop>, <serif>, <charset>" |
| Default value | "Times New Roman, New, Regular, 12" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Fonts |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This tells the program what font should be used for any tables. The default font will differ between RTF and HTML generation.
The value is a comma separated list which has the same format as that described in the Default Font policy.
| Possible values | "<face>, <Type>, <size>, <prop>, <serif>, <charset>" |
| Default value | "Times New Roman, New, Regular, 12" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Fonts |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This tells the program what font should be used for any TOC generated The default font will differ between RTF and HTML generation.
The value has the same format as that described in the Default Font policy.
| Possible values | HTML colours |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Document colours |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Identifies the text colour of the HTML page(s) created. This value is a
HTML colour that is used to set the TEXT attribute of the <BODY> tag.
| Possible values | Local file containing Text Commands |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Config Files |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Configuration Files |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
Identifies the name of a text file which defines various "Text Commands" that can be used to manipulate the input text prior to any conversions being executed
See the Chapter on "Using Text Command Files" in the program manuals.
| Possible values | "left", "right", "center" or "none" |
| Default value | "left" |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> File Structure |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This policy is important in detecting pre-formatted text.
If text is centred then padding spaces may be added. This has to be ignored when detecting pre-formatted text.
Somewhat confusingly "center" here means what most word processors would call "justified".
| Possible values | Text | string |
| Default value | (see | below) |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy | |
| Policy file section | RTF | |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> RTF Settings | |
| Command line option | n/a | |
| Related directives | n/a | |
(Only applies to RTF generation)
For conversions to RTF only, this specifies size of margin at the top of the page. If omitted the Word default of 1 inch (2.54 cm) will be used.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> General layout |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates that each line of text in the file should be treated as a new
paragraph. This should only ever be set to "yes" if the source file was
created in a text editor that relies on word wrap to set the line size.
Such files usually don't have much structure above and beyond the paragraphs.
| Possible values | HTML colours |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Document colours |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Identifies the colour of "unvisited" hyperlinks, that is the colour of the hyperlink before it is selected for the first time. This value is a HTML colour that is used to set the LINK attribute of the <BODY> tag.
See also :-
Active Link Colour
Visited Link Colour
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | File generation |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> File generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This policy specifies whether or not the generated HTML files should have
a .HTM extension. The default is to use a ".html" extension, unless
DOS-compatible files are requested.
This will be enabled whenever Use DOS filenames is selected.
Note this policy may be overridden by the more general Use .HTM extension policy.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | (only available by editing policy file) |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This policy specifies that where a code fragment has been detected or
marked up, what sort of HTML markup should be used.
HTML provides a special <CODE> .. </CODE> markup that is suited to variables being quoted in text, but is not well suited for marking up several lines. In particular, you have to add non-breaking spaces and <BR> markup if you wish to correctly lay out several lines. This makes the resultant HTML harder to read and much larger.
For this reason, AscToHTM defaults to <PRE> .. </PRE> markup for code fragments. The only reason for reversing this might be if you needed the <CODE> tag for a particular style sheet to take effect.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Style |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This policy specifies whether or not definition paragraphs should
be marked up using <DL><DT>..<DT> <DD>..</DD></DL> markup.
The default is "yes", but if you find that too much text is being marked up this way, either disable this policy of disable search for definitions.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> HTML styling |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies whether <EM> and <STRONG> markup should be used in preference to
<I> and <B> when placing text in italic or bold markup.
Strictly speaking <EM> and <STRONG> should be used as these are "logical" as opposed to "physical" markup.
The preference has become a near religious decision which I avoid, by giving you this policy so you can choose (if you really care)
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Style |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This policy specifies whether <P> or <BR> markup should be used for
paragraphs. In most browsers <P> markup produces more white space
with apparently a "blank line" placed between paragraphs. A <BR>
doesn't have this effect.
You should use this policy if you wish to reduce the amount of white space in your output document, in which case you should also review the ignore multiple blank lines policy.
This policy is switched on by default. We don't recommend you change this, especially if you plan to use the font and CSS abilities being added in V4.0 and above.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Fonts |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This tells the program that Cascading style sheets (CSS) should be used to
implement any font markup. CSS is new in HTML 4.0, and is a more
efficient way of implementing fonts than using the <FONT> tag (which is
being phased out from HTML 4.0 onwards).
You should leave this policy unchanged, unless you experience trouble with your fonts.
Note, CSS is incompatible with HTML 3.2, whilst the <FONT> tag is incomparable with "HTML 4.0 Strict". Both may be used in "HTML 4.0 Transitional".
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | File generation |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> File generation |
| Command line option | /DOS |
| Related directives | n/a |
This specifies whether or not the names of the generated HTML files
must be DOS compatible. This policy has the same effect as using the
/DOS qualifier on the command line.
If selected the filenames will all have a ".HTM" extension, and be given upper case names.
Any file name whose root exceeds 8 character will be shortened by keeping the first 3 characters, and adding a unique 5-digit number derived from the longer name.
See also :-
DOS filename root
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Preprocessor |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> preprocessor |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This policy tells the program whether or not the preprocessor should be
used. If it isn't used, then all preprocessor directives are ignored
and a straight conversion from input to output files occurs.
We don't normally recommend you change this.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Contents |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Contents List |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This policy specifies whether or not you wish to use any existing contents
list found in the source document. If you disable this option, any
contents found will be discarded. A contents list will only be added
if you select the add contents list policy
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Title, description etc. |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies that the first heading in the document may be considered as a
candidate for the document title.
See the discussion in Document title.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Title, description etc. |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
Specifies that the first meaningful line in the document may be considered as a heading as the start of the document. "Meaningful" in this context means a line recognised by the program as a headings which is more that 2 characters long once trimmed of all leading and trailing white space.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Title, description etc. |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies that the first meaningful line in the document may be considered
as a candidate for the document title. "Meaningful" in this context means
a line recognised by the program as a headings which is more that 2
characters long once trimmed of all leading and trailing white
space.
See the discussion in Document title.
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> RTF Settings |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to RTF generation)
For conversions to RTF only, this specifies whether or not the document should be placed in Landscape mode. If omitted document will default to portrait mode.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
This has exactly the same effect as Use main header in header frame, but this time for footers. See the discussion in that section.
See also :-
Use main header in header frame
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
When this policy is set the software will attempt to move any HTML header defined for each page into a header frame. This allows the same policy file to be used for both FRAMES and non-FRAMES generation.
In non-FRAMES generation the supplied header will be included at the top of each page generated.
If this policy is enabled, then in FRAMES generation the supplied header will be placed in a header frame, and omitted from each page generated. This means the header will always be visible in the header frame, as the generated pages are displayed and scrolled in the main frame.
Further modification of this behaviour is possible by using the
HTML fragments feature to define
specific HTML fragments
to be used in particular frames. See the section on HTML Fragments in the
Tag Manual.
See also :-
Use main footer in footer frame
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes (when splitting HTML into many files) |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | File generation |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> File generation -> Split into many files |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
(Only applies to HTML generation)
When splitting a large document into files this option allows you to name your output files using a numbering sequence. Previously the file names would attempt to come from the first heading and it was possible to get duplicates.
Enabling this option means that when converting filename.txt, it will be split into filename_1.html, filename_2.html etc, etc, giving more consistent and orderly filenames.
| Possible values | 1,2,3... |
| Default value | 1 |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> RTF Settings |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to RTF generation)
This policy specifies how you want the software to apply RTF Styles to the text during conversion. The software can place text in styles according to the Analysis as follows. The styles are divided amongst a number of
Normal (generic normal text style)
|
+-- 1 Body (main body text)
| |
| +--- 11 ShortLine (short lines)
| +--- 12 Bullet (bullets and numbered lists)
| +--- 13 Quoted ("quoted" text as found in emails)
| +--- 14 Hanging (hanging paragraphs)
| +--- 15 Definition (definitions)
|
+-- 2 Table (Table text)
+-- 3 Preform (preformatted text)
+-- 4 Diagram (diagrams)
+-- 5 Code (code samples)
|
+-- 6 Heading (generic heading style)
| |
| +--- 61 Heading1 (level 1 headings)
| +--- 62 Heading2 (level 2 headings)
| +--- 63 Heading3 (level 3 headings)
| +--- 64 Heading4 (level 4 headings)
| +--- 65 Heading5 (level 5 headings)
|
+-- 7 TOC (generic TOC style)
| |
| +--- 71 TOC1 (level 1 TOC entry)
| +--- 72 TOC2 (level 2 TOC entry)
| +--- 73 TOC3 (level 3 TOC entry)
| +--- 74 TOC4 (level 4 TOC entry)
| +--- 75 TOC5 (level 5 TOC entry)
o
How the software marks up the text in styles depends on the value of this policy as follows
1 All of the above styles are available 2 Only the major styles Normal, Headings, Table, Fixed and TOC
are used3 Only the style "Normal" is used
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> RTF Settings |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to RTF generation)
New in version 5.0
For conversions to RTF only, this specifies whether or not the bullet characters in the original text should be used as the bullet markers in the generated RTF.
Normally RTF uses special bullet symbols, but these can cause problems if you want to cut and paste the RTF text into a plain text editor.
If this policy is enabled, the marker in the original source will be copied to the output. If this policy is disabled, the result will then depend on the Characters to use for bullets policy.
| Possible values | HTML colours |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Document colours |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Identifies the colour of "visited" hyperlinks, that is the colour of the
hyperlink after is has been selected at least once. This value is a
HTML colour that is used to set the VLINK attribute of the <BODY> tag.
See also :-
Active Link Colour
Unvisited Link Colour
| Possible values | yes/no |
| Default value | no |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF help file |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Make Help File |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
(Only applies to RTF generation)
If you are attempting to create a WinHelp file for one of your own software applications you will need to supply the name of the .hm resource file from your project that defines the topic IDs that your software will want to be defined in the help file. This .hm file will be added to your project file and is a crucial link between IDs used in your software, and topics defined in your help file.
See also :-
Make Windows help source file
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