Re: AppleWorks 5 Limit

[stevee@onix.com]

This discussion has interested me since I have come up against the
word processing document size limit several times when trying to read
large downloaded text files and while trying to edit large pieces of
ProTERM 3.1 scrollback saved as text files.

Despite the previous mention in this thread of 79 character lines on
the screen, the most characters I can show on the AppleWorks 5.1
screen is 77 across, even though you can print many more characters
per line on paper.  My guess is that (please someone tell me if I am
wrong) the limit of 16,250 refers to the number of SCREEN lines.  So,
if an input text file did not have any carriage returns, the maximum
theoretical size limit would be 16,250 lines times 77 characters per
line, or 1,251,250 bytes.  In practice, the text file limit is
usually perhaps 30 percent less due to carriage returns and word wrap
before reaching column 77.

I have some questions about what I wrote in the previous paragraph
the answers to which may help next time I bump up against the 16,250
line limit.

First, when you use Apple-O to increase the platen width and
characters per inch, pushing the characters per printed lines to its
maximum, does this increase the allowable length per document?  In
other words, can a document in AWP format, with a saved maximum of
13.2 inches lines width and 17 characters per inch, be much larger
than the TXT equivalent because you can cram 244 characters into a
printed line?  Or, as I suspect, do AWP documents stripped of
carriage returns have the same 1,251,250 byte theoretical maximum
size as TXT documents?  Obviously I could test this myself, but
someone who already knows the answer without doing research will I
hope reply and will probably have an enlightening explanation as well
as the answer.  A related question:  If by some chance you can have
bigger files by making them long-line AWP, then what about the idea
of writing a program to convert extra-big TXT files to extra-wide AWP
files?  Writing this kind of program in Applesoft seems feasible,
although I have found that Applesoft code to read and write big files
runs very slow even after going through the Beagle Compiler.  (Yea, I
know, if I bought more memory and an accelerator, compiled Applesoft
would be fast enough and I wouldn't have so many interesting
problems.)

Second, are there any good ProDOS 8 freeware or moderate-fee
shareware word processors that allow larger files than does
AppleWorks 5.1?  For GS/OS, Hermes would fit the bill, but I need a
ProDOS 8 equivalent because my GS only has 2 meg memory and, wit
OSbecome an out of memory condition under GS/OS and Hermes.)

Steve Eisenberg    Pennsylvania, U.S.A.     stevee@onix.com