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Hello Nisus people,
I have a very long document (1MB, circa 400 pages) that has the following structure:

Chapter 1
Endnotes for Chapter 1 (per section)
Section Break

Chapter 2
Endnotes for Chapter 2 (per section)
Section Break

Chapter n
Endnotes for Chapter n (per section)
Section Break

Problems I'm getting to deliver it to someone who's gonna work with that file to produce a book in InDesign and will use Word to check the file first:

1. Endnotes per section show as endnotes per document in Word.
2. Trying to replace the section breaks with page breaks (manually, one after the other) will crash Nisus.
3. Cannot open that document in Nisus 2.7 (it always crashes), so I'm sticking to 2.6.1.
4. Opening the document and copying or cutting

Chapter n
Endnotes for Chapter n (per section)
Section Break

then pasting

Chapter n
Endnotes for Chapter n (per section)
Section Break

in order to create a new file, and saving it as Chapter_n.rtf will crash after saving the first file.

That is, I can copy Chapter 1, but after I try to repeat the same thing with the next chapter, Nisus will crash. It stops responding to the copying or cutting command, then it refuses to save the document, so I do a force quit to start again.

Is there an easier way to replace section breaks for page breaks?
Is there an easier way for me to split that file in smaller ones?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

A couple of ideas to try.

1. Can you copy chapters individually into 2.7? I've found 2.7 stabler than 2.6.1 when it comes to doing things similar to what you're trying to do or to what I'm about to suggest.

2. Can you save multiple copies of the original file (one for each chapter), then delete all but that one chapter?

The folks at Nisus might be interested in seeing this troublesome document -- if you don't mind sharing it. If you want to keep the content secret, you could do what I do and use PowerFind to replace all letters with "x" (or any character you like) and all numerals with "0" (or any character you like). You could then save it under a new file name and send it to Nisus through Help > Send Feedback.

--Craig

cchapin wrote:A couple of ideas to try.

1. Can you copy chapters individually into 2.7?

In the end, that's what I did, but in reverse order, i.e., I opened the document in 2.6.1, cut every chapter from the last one until there was only one left.
Why the reverse order?
Well, when I tried the same thing from the beginning of the file, after chapter 1 (and the first section break), NWE stopped responding to the Copy or Cut commands, it simply did not copy or cut anything and kept chapter 1 in the clipboard. Go figure...

cchapin wrote:2. Can you save multiple copies of the original file (one for each chapter), then delete all but that one chapter?

I didn't approach it this way because it is a very large file and selecting all but one chapter is a very slow and tedious process, so I tried the copying and cutting described above instead, but if this bugs me again in the future, I'll sure try that one! Thanks for the tip.

cchapin wrote:The folks at Nisus might be interested in seeing this troublesome document -- if you don't mind sharing it. If you want to keep the content secret, you could do what I do and use PowerFind to replace all letters with "x" (or any character you like) and all numerals with "0" (or any character you like). You could then save it under a new file name and send it to Nisus through Help > Send Feedback.

--Craig

I definitely cannot share this file, but I also would like that file to be checked by the Nisus folks, so your PowerFind technique comes in handy. Thanks again!
I really regret Nisus chose the rtf format. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of working with something like DocBook...
Thanks again for your suggestions.
Georges

Georges wrote:

cchapin wrote:2. Can you save multiple copies of the original file (one for each chapter), then delete all but that one chapter?

I didn't approach it this way because it is a very large file and selecting all but one chapter is a very slow and tedious process, so I tried the copying and cutting described above instead, but if this bugs me again in the future, I'll sure try that one! Thanks for the tip.

Dragging across that much text would be a pain, but there are some keyboard shortcuts you could use.

If you place your insertion point at the beginning of the chapter, then press either shift-command-up or shift-home, you can select to the beginning of the document and then delete. If you then place your insertion point at the end of the chapter, then press either shift-command-down or shift-end, you can select to the end of the document and then delete.

But it sounds like you've worked out the problem otherwise.

--Craig