Regularize Document

The Regularize Document on the Format menu can be used to do the following:

•Cleans Nota Bene documents by removing unnecessary, duplicate, and/or superfluous commands, making for less cluttered and easier-to-reformat documents; an additional option enables the removal of unwanted commands at the beginning of notes, thus making it easier for their format to be controlled by the note settings (Format, Notes...)

•Removes all instances of the specified command(s)

•Removes all commands from a file, leaving a text-only version

In order to prevent you from inadvertently losing the original version (for example, if you save the changed file, now with some commands removed, without first checking it), Nota Bene will automatically save the original version of up to nine previous clean/remove attempts (on the same and/or different file) in the NB Autosave folder

The option to Regularize Document is not available for untitled files or for read-only files.

Clean File

Clicking the Clean File button removes duplicate codes (language markers, paragraph indentation, mode/attributes and font, and line spacing and other commands) from the file. Clean File always performs cleanup on the body text. In addition, you can check either or both of the option boxes before clicking the Clean File button. The options are:

•Remove extraneous commands and spaces at the beginning of footnotes. Extraneous commands are common when notes from Word are copied into Nota Bene. By removing these commands, notes can be reformatted and made consistent by editing the note settings at the top of the file, rather than having to change each note.

•Remove language commands surrounding spaces, commas, and periods. Even if they represent an actual language change, they are superfluous, since those characters do not require a switch in language.

Clean File function can take some time. The status line shows count of changes being made. The page-line thermometer shows a meter that displays the percent of the file processed. A summary of the results is given after the process is complete.

Remove

Clicking the Remove button removes specified commands from the file. You can remove all commands, or only specified commands.

All commands: If the All Commands box is checked, the option to select individual commands will not be available. This function removes all commands, including footnotes, annotations, etc., from the file, leaving you with a regular text file that has no embedded formatting commands.

Specified commands:  If the All Commands box is unchecked, you will be able to designate which commands to remove. If only specified commands are removed, the dialog will remain open so you can select additional commands to remove. This is especially useful when removing selected styles or other commands. If only selected commands are removed, you can retain the commands at the top of the file (before the first character), and remove only those that follow.

Saving Changes & Backups

Because clean up or removal of commands has the capacity to change the format of a file, you should examine the file before saving it. If you are not certain of the impact of the process, you can always save the changed version to a different name. In order to prevent loss of work if changes are accepted prematurely, NB makes backup copies of the changed files. These backup copies are saved in the Autosave folder. The original version of the last nine clean/remove operations are saved. The files have the name {CLEAN#}.TMP, where # is a number from 1 to 9. The files are kept in FIFO order (first in, first out). After 9 files have been saved, the next file saved deletes {CLEAN9}.TMP, renames {CLEAN8} to {CLEAN9}, etc.