Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!eos!shelby!neon!hitt
From: hitt@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Daniel Hitt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: printing .wn files
Summary: wn2rtf really does produce output, still need ps output
Keywords: .wn, PostScript, easy question, wn2rtf
Message-ID: <1990May9.020712.26849@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 9 May 90 02:07:12 GMT
References: <1990May4.101750.5205@Neon.Stanford.EDU> <10227@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
Sender: hitt@neon.stanford.edu
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Lines: 30

After reading Roger Jagoda's response i tried to do wn2rtf again and for
a while it looked like it wouldn't work.

But if you're careful to use a ``plain file'' such as
/NextLibrary/Documentation/Ariel/Bug56Reference.wn/WNDocument.wn,
then typing
/NextApps/WriteNow.app/wn2rtf plain-file-name.wn > rtf-output.rtf
will produce an output file (in the case of the Bug 
reference above, the file consists of 124508 characters, 
303 of them non-ASCII, according to vi, at least---the original 
document had 104089 bytes).

(Some directories have the extension .wn and on those i also got
empty output.)

It would still be nice to have a program to convert .wn files to
PostScript.  Furthermore, somebody (say at NeXT) who has access to the 
source code might be able to write such a program without too much
effort:  George Drapeau has pointed out that it is possible to 
convert from .wn to PostScript by opening
a .wn document with WriteNow, then choosing ``print'' from the menu,
then choosing ``save'' from the requestor box that comes up (and
then cancelling the print).  The problem with this approach is that
you have to be at the console in order to do it.  But someone with
access to the sources could perhaps ``glue'' them together in
a way that there could be easy access to this via a terminal.

Thanks to Roger Jagoda and Joe St Sauver for responding.

dan