From: wiggins@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu (Don Wiggins)
Subject: Editing DOS PAF Notes
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 00:41:07 GMT

A few days ago I posted a request here for information on editing PAF
notes files.  My situation was that I had scores of lengthy notes files
already entered into PAF, using the PAF editor, but I really wanted to
clean some of them up.  Anyone who uses it knows that the PAF editor is
_very_ basic, and really isn't very flexible.  I had several email
responses to that request, so thought it appropriate that I pass along
what I found.

First of all, let me say that I really hate to complain too loudly
about ANYTHING in PAF because the program is still one of the best
software buys around, in my view.

Several people pointed out that you can use virtually any editor or
word processor to create notes files for PAF.  That's true, but once
you change the default editor to anything other than the internal PAF
editor, the program will only display the notes created by the
external editor.  If you change the default back to the PAF editor,
then the program will only display PAF editor notes and ignore the others.
Personally, if I was starting my database all over again, I'd probably just
use an external editor, but that's not practical for me at this point.

Others pointed out that you can create a GEDCOM file, edit it, and then
reload it into PAF.  That's not a bad idea, but GEDCOM files contain various
other characters throughout the lines of text which, it seems to me, make 
it difficult to do the extensive editing that I needed.

One or two individuals suggested that I switch to Macintosh, but of
course I disregarded that idea immediately.  (grin)

Someone else said there are rumors that PAF will be available somewhere
down the road in a windows version, which will make it very Mac-like,
allowing you to lift text from one window and insert it into another.
I'd probably be interested in that, since it would be on a _DOS_ machine.
(grin again)

The slickest solution came from Steve Wood.  He wrote a program in C
that copies every notes file in your database to another file.  You can
then edit to your heart's content and read the entire thing back into
your database.  It's really clean, simple to use, and seems to be
almost exactly what I was looking for.  Steve has agreed to make the
program available via anonymous ftp to anyone who'd like to try it, but
because this is a relatively new and not totally field tested program,
he asks that you contact him directly so he can provide you with the
proper warnings, etc.:

	Internet:  saw@hallc1.cebaf.gov
	Internet:  saw@cebaf.gov
	Bitnet:    saw@cebaf

Thanks to everyone who took the time to offer suggestions.  Whenever I read
this board, I always feel like I'm among friends.

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 |Don Wiggins                         |            _Researching_        |
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