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The most recent version of this document can always be found online
| Possible values | HTML colours |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Document colours |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Identifies the colour of "active" hyperlinks, that is the colour of the hyperlink just as it is being selected. This value is a HTML colour that is used to set the ALINK attribute of the <BODY> tag.
See also :-
Unvisited Link Colour
Visited Link Colour
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Hyperlinks |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Hyperlinks |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates that lines that are detected as having URLs in them
should have <BR> markup added to the end. This is useful in documents
that have a list of URLs, one per line, as the URLs usually make the
lines quite long (avoiding short line detection), and you would want to
preserve the line structure.
However, this is less useful where URLs occur in the middle of a paragraph of text, as it inserts a <BR>, and breaks the paragraph.
Prior to V3.0 this was default behaviour, but now it is switched off by default.
In later versions we may attempt to make this policy auto-detected.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
This specifies that, if possible, a contents frame should be placed on the left of the screen to hold a generated contents list. Alternatively a CONTENTS_FRAME HTML fragment can be defined
Generated contents lists are only possible when the program recognises headings inside your text file, so you may need to get that working first.
If no content for the contents frame is possible, a WARNING message is generated.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Contents |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Contents List |
| Command line option | /CONTENTS |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies that the program should generate a contents list or index to
match all the section heading that it marks up. This contents list
will consist of hyperlinks to take you to the corresponding section
and HTML file.
The placement of the contents list depends on
- how you have decided to split up your output HTML (see Split level)).
- whether you have any $_$_CONTENT_LIST directives placed in your source file
- whether or not the file has an existing contents list that is recognised by the program. If it has then by default that list will be used and converted into hyperlinks. (see Expect Contents List)
Whenever you elect to have a contents list generated, any lines perceived by the program as being part of a contents list in the original document will be discarded.
You can enable this option from the command line by using the /CONTENTS qualifier (see Changing policies by using command line options)
The default location for the contents list
If you are simply generating a single HTML page, then any contents list will be placed at the top of the page.
If you decide to split your HTML into several files, then the contents list is placed at the bottom of first page. Any text before the first section in your document will be placed before the contents list in this first page.
Placing the contents list in separate fileIf you want, you can chose to place the contents list in a separate file. If you choose this option a "Tables of Contents" link will be added to the top of your file. See Generate external contents file
Changing the contents list placement in the HTMLFrom V3.2 onwards you can place a contents list wherever you want by inserting a $_$_CONTENTS_LIST directive at the desired location (see Changing policies by using preprocessor directives). When these tags are detected no default contents list is created.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> HTML Styling |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to HTML generation)
Specifies whether explicit bold and italic markup should be generated. Adding <EM> and <STRONG> tags will override any text formatting supplied via CSS, so in general this will be true where <FONT> tags are being used, but should be set to "no" when CSS is being relied on for text markup.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
This specifies whether or not you want visible borders on your frames. If the borders are visible then users will be able to select and move them to resize the frames to a size that suits them.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Contents |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Contents |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies whether or not mail headers should be included in any generated
contents list. For a mail digest this should be yes, but for larger documents
with only a couple of mail headers the answer may be no.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes (when splitting HTML into many files) |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | File generation |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> File generation -> Split into many files |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This policy is only relevant if you have elected to split your document
into a number of smaller HTML files (see split level)
In such cases this policy allows you have a navigation bar inserted at the foot of each HTML page, before any standard footer is added.
The navigation bar consists of
This policy is enabled by default whenever file splitting is selected.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
Specifies that a NOFRAMES link should be added to the Contents frame. You can choose the target of this link using the NOFRAMES link URL policy.
The NOFRAMES link will target the "_top" browser window, thereby replacing the current FRAMESET by the single page selected without creating new browser windows.
NOFRAMES links are useful courtesy to users who dislike FRAMES, and they are also search-engine friendly.
Note, this link is a visible NOFRAMES link. In addition to this the software will in any case create a non-visible <NOFRAMES> tag that will allow users whose browsers do not support FRAMES to access your content.
See also :-
NOFRAMES link URL
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Style |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates that automatic detection of centred text should be attempted.
The indentation and length of each line is compared to the nominal page width
within a specified tolerance (see page width and Automatic centring tolerance)
If the line appears centred (and meets a few other conditions) then it will be rendered centred in the output.
This option is normally left switched off, as it is still too prone to give errors (i.e. centring lines that shouldn't be). This has been improved in later versions, but is still not robust enough to be relied upon.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Preprocessor |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates whether or not the program should look for definition terms inside
a pre-formatted section of text. Only really relevant if the
Highlight definition text policy is enabled.
Sometimes lists of definitions appear like pre-formatted text, especially if the definitions are aligned on the right.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Hyperlinks |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Hyperlinks |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates whether or not email addresses that start with a number are
permitted or not.
Often USENET and mail headers reference message IDs which are of the form <number>@<domain name>. As such they will often look like valid email addresses. This policy may be used to control how such addresses are interpreted.
| Possible values | URL describing the author of this document |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Title, description etc. |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
Identifies the URL of the author of this document. A META tag will be added to the HTML so that those browsers that can display this information can use it.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates that the program should attempt automatic table generation on any
apparently pre-formatted text it encounters. Text that appears pre-formatted
to the program can turn out to be a number of different things
- a table
- a diagram
- a code sample
- not pre-formatted text after all
The program will attempt to distinguish between these, but it's a blank art. Table generation may not be appropriate for the document being converted, or alternatively the table generated may be so flawed that you'd prefer to use <PRE>...</PRE> markup, in which case you can use this policy to switch that feature off.
When switched off the program will still look for pre-formatted text, but will default to outputting it in <PRE> ... </PRE> markup as it did prior to v2.2.
| Possible values | number of characters 0,1,2... |
| Default value | 2 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Style |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies the tolerance used (expressed as a number of characters offset)
when detecting centred text.
Given that the detection of centred text depends on its position relative to the calculated page width, which itself may not be accurate, increasing this value may give better results. Equally, it may wrongly detect more text as centred.
The default value is 2, which is also used as a minimum regardless of the value you enter.
See also :-
Allow automatic centring.
| Possible values | HTML colours |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Document colours |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Identifies the background colour of the HTML page(s) created.
This value is a HTML colour that is used to set the BGCOLOR attribute of
the <BODY> tag. If omitted, AscToHTM defaults to a white background
(I find Gray too dull)
| Possible values | URL of image file (e.g. a .jpg or .gif) |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Title, description etc. |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Identifies the URL of any image to be placed in the BACKGROUND
attribute of the <BODY> tag.
| Possible values | URL to be used as a bookmark |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Title, description etc. |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
Identifies the URL to be used as the bookmark for this document. A META tag will be added to the HTML so that those browsers that understand this information can use it.
| Possible values | Text | string |
| Default value | (see | below) |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy | |
| Policy file section | RTF | |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> RTF Settings | |
| Command line option | n/a | |
| Related directives | n/a | |
(Only applies to RTF generation)
For conversions to RTF only, this specifies size of margin at the bottom of the page. If omitted the Word default of 1 inch (2.54 cm) will be used.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | File generation |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> File generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies that long HTML lines should be broken into smaller ones. This
attempts to make the HTML more readable, should you need to edit it afterwards.
However, there is the possibility that the insertion of newline characters into the output could affect how the HTML is displayed. This is because most of the browsers have bugs in their parsing of newlines. These problems are most pronounced when using non-standard (12pt) font sizes.
If you experience such problems, try disabling this policy.
| Possible values | '<character>'. One policy line per character |
| Default value | '*' |
| Policy scope | Fixed analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Bullets |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Bullets |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This policy will probably be replaced in future versions
This species a character that can occur at the start of a line to represent a bullet point. Special attention is paid to '-' and 'o' characters, but any character will do.
The program should detect such characters (e.g. special character codes for bullets that are generated when saving from Word etc.)
Use one line for each bullet char.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Headings |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Headings |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
Specifies that the first heading in a document should be centred, making it look more like the document title.
See also :-
Use first line as heading
| Possible values | HTML character encoding schemes |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Title, description etc. |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This allows the HTML character encoding to be set. Although designed to convert documents that use the ASCII character set, the software has some ability to convert Japanese and Cyrillic files amongst others. For such files to display correctly, the character encoding has to be set up correctly. This value is then used in a META tag added to the document header.
Possible values include
big5, csbig5 - Chinese (Big5) gb2312, csGB2312 - Chinese (gb) koi8-r - Cyrillic ms Kanji - Japanese shift jis, csShiftJIS - Japanese x-sjis
- Japanese
iso-8859-n
- (n=1,2,3) various languages (Greek, Turkish,
Arabic, etc)
UTF-8 - Unicode
Although I don't think AscToHTM will support Unicode at present.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Hyperlinks |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Hyperlinks |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates whether or not potential URLs should have their "domain name" checked against the known domain name structures, (i.e. ends in .com, .org, .co.uk etc). Having this switched on reduces the likelyhood of invalid URLs being turned into clickable links that don't go anywhere. Note, the software doesn't check the domain exists, only that the domain name obeys the known rules.
You might want to switch this off if your document contains URLs that don't use standard domain names (e.g. they are inside an Intranet).
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> RTF Settings |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to RTF generation)
New in version 5.0
For conversions to RTF only, this specifies the characters to be used as bullet characters in the generated RTF. Normally RTF will use special bullet symbols, but these can cause problems if you want to cut and paste the RTF text into a plain text editor.
To get round this problem this policy can be used. The first character will be used for level 1 bullets, the second for level 2 bullets etc ...
This policy will not take effect if the policy Use original bullet text has been enabled.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Headings |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> HTML styling |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies that when checking headings the indentation should be checked for consistency. This can help reduce the error rate when numbered lists and numbered headings are both in the same document, but on the other hand can cause problems in documents where the headings are centred, and therefore at all different indentations.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_COLO(U)R_ROWS" |
Indicates that where AscToHTM detects and generates HTML tables, the data
rows (as opposed to the Header rows) should be alternatively be coloured
differently. This helps highlight the different rows, especially if the
table has no border.
See also :-
Default TABLE odd row colour
Default TABLE even row colour
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Tables |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
When a Default TABLE layout is set, this specifies whether or not the boundaries between columns have zero size. By default the software assumes there is a single-character boundary (either a space or a delimiter character) between columns.
Sometimes data comes from a source with no character between data columns. This policy should be set in such cases.
| Possible values | 1-10 |
| Default value | 5 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Table Analysis |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
When analysing preformatted regions to look for tables, this indicates
the degree to which potential columns should be "merged" if there is
any doubt as to their validity.
A value of 10 means almost all "suspicious" columns will be merged together. This is suitable when the analysis is producing too many false columns, and may happen when the table contains a lot of free form text that just happens to line up.
A value of 1 means that no "suspicious" columns will be eliminated.
Note, it is still possible that the number and position of columns will be calculated incorrectly. In such cases you may need to explicitly supply a table layout. See Default table layout
| Possible values | 0,1 or 2 |
| Default value | 0 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | n/a |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Added HTML -> Advanced Options |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Used to control the placing of comment in the code advertising the fact that AscToHTM was used to generate the file. By default the program will add a META tag marking ASCTOHTM as the generator and comments at the top and bottom of the file identifying the program.
The value should be set as follows
0 META tag and comments added 1 META tag added 2 neither added
This policy is only available in the registered version of the software.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | File generation |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> File generation |
| Command line option | /concatenate |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in 4.2
When enabled this specifies that when converting multiple files at the same time, all the results should be merged together to form a single output file.
If the output file name hasn't been set, then it will be derived from the first file converted in the usual manner.
Depending on the target format, only one header and one footer will be added. By default this will be the header that the first file would have and the footer that the last file (or all files combined) would have.
This options is supported as follows
AscToHTM Not yet AscToRTF Not Yet Detagger Yes
| Possible values | HTML Colours |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames -> Frame colours |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
See discussion in Header frame background colour.
| Possible values | HTML Colours |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames -> Frame colours |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
See discussion in Header frame background colour.
| Possible values | Size in pixels or as a percentage |
| Default value | 200 |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Frames |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Frames |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to FRAMES production when HTML is being generated)
If a contents frame is generated, this specifies its width. The default is 200 pixels. To specify a percentage, add the % sign on the end, e.g. "30%"
See also :-
Header Frame depth
Footer Frame depth
| Possible values | 0, 1 |
| Default value | 0 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Contents |
| Menu location | (only available by editing policy file) |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies a "style" to be applied to the contents list. There aren't too
many options at present.
Possible values are
0
AscToHTM "Classic". Contents line is bolded
1 As above, but not bolded.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_CONVERT_XREFS" |
Indicates whether or not cross-references to numbered sections should
be converted into hyperlinks to those sections. Unfortunately, the
program cannot differentiate between section references and ordinary
numbers in the source text (unless you place the number inside a TEXT
in-line tag). This leads to occasional errors, for example
when software version numbers are discussed in a document.
This problem proved to be particularly acute inside tables of numbers. For that reason this policy was introduced to allow the conversion of section numbers to hyperlinks inside a TABLE to be switched off independently from the rest of the document.
By default this policy is disabled. Users should only switch this behaviour on if they have a table of section numbers (such an index or contents list)
| Possible values | URL of copyright notice |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Title, description etc. |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
Identifies a URL describing the copyright notice for this document. A META tag will be added to the HTML so that those browsers that can display this information can use it.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Tables |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies whether or not blank lines inside a table should be taken to
be row separators. If they are, and there are enough of them, then the
table will have all adjacent lines merged into single multi-line rows.
If they're not, then each line will become a row in the table.
This policy is usually determined on a case-by-case basis for each table.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Hyperlinks |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Hyperlinks |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This indicates that probable FTP references such as ftp.microsoft.com
should be converted into active hyperlinks. Sometimes text is assumed
to be an ftp link when it isn't. If you find that happening, use this
policy to prevent the conversion.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Hyperlinks |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Hyperlinks |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This indicates that probable gopher references should be converted
into active hyperlinks.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Hyperlinks |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Hyperlinks |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This indicates that probable USENET newsgroup references such as
alt.games.mornington.cresent (sic) are to be converted into active hyperlinks.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Hyperlinks |
| Menu location | n/a |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This indicates that probable telnet references should be converted into active hyperlinks.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | n/a |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> File Generation |
| Command line option | /LOG=<filespec> |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies that a .log file should be created. This will contains copies of all
the messages output during conversion, together with some that may have been
suppressed.
See also :-
Output log filename
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Hyperlinks |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Hyperlinks |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This indicates that all candidate http, www and ftp URLs should be converted
into active hyperlinks.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Hyperlinks |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Hyperlinks |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This indicates that all candidate email addresses are to be converted
into active mailto hyperlinks.
| Possible values | Headings level, 0,1,2.. |
| Default value | 2 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Hyperlinks |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Hyperlinks |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
For documents with numbered section headings, this indicates the section
level at which and above which all cross-references are to be converted
to hyperlinks to the sections themselves.
For example a value of 2 means all n.n, n.n.n etc references are converted. A value of "1" might seem desirable, but is liable to give many false references. This is because the error rate becomes too high on single numbers/letters or roman numerals.
This may be refined in later releases.
A value of "0" means "don't add hyperlinks to cross-references".
See also :-
Expect numbered headings.
| Possible values | "<face>, <Type>, <size>, <prop>, <serif>, <charset>" |
| Default value | "Times New Roman, Regular, 12" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Fonts |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This tells the program what font should be used. The value is a comma separated list which contains
| <face> |
The font family name (e.g. "Arial") |
| <Type> |
Whether or not it's bold etc. The possible values are Regular Bold Italic BoldItalic |
| <size> |
Font size in points (pts) |
| Possible values | L[eft],R[ight],C[enter],A[utomatic] |
| Default value | Automatic |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_ALIGN" |
Specifies how the table should be aligned with respect to the page. The default behaviour is "automatic", which usually means left-justified, but taking into account any indentation the table has.
| Possible values | HTML colours |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_BORDERCOLOR" |
This tells AscToHTM what colour to use for the table border.
Not all browsers support this.
| Possible values | A size (in pixels) |
| Default value | 0 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_BORDER" |
This policy sets the default value for the <TABLE> BORDER attribute.
A value of 0 means "no border".
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | (only available by editing policy file) |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_CAPTION" |
Specifies the caption to be applied to generated tables. However, since this
will be applied to all generated tables, this is less useful that placing
individual TABLE_CAPTION directives in your source text.
| Possible values | L[eft],R[ight],C[enter],J[ustified] |
| Default value | "(none)" - meaning auto-detect. |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_CELL_ALIGN" |
Specifies the default cell-alignment to be applied to table cells. Normally
the program will try to auto-detect a suitable cell alignment on a column
by column, cell by cell basis.
You can use this to (rather crudely) set all cells to be aligned the same way if the results are not to your taste.
| Possible values | A size (in pixels) |
| Default value | 2 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_CELLPADDING" |
This tells AscToHTM what value to use for the TABLE CELLPADDING attribute
of the table. Browsers that support this will add space inside each
cell.
A value of "0" means "none".
| Possible values | A size (in pixels) |
| Default value | 2 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_CELLSPACING" |
This tells AscToHTM what value to use for the CELLSPACING attribute
of the table. Browsers that support this will add space between each
cell.
A value of "0" means "none".
| Possible values | HTML colours |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_BGCOLOR" |
This tells AscToHTM what colour to use for the background to each
cell. Not all browsers support this.
If omitted the table with take on the background colour of the whole page.
See also :-
Background Colour.
| Possible values | Single character to be used as delimiter |
| Default value | none |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Main screen |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
This policy is used to save the value of the "delimiter character" selected on the main screen whenever the "input file type" has been set to "other-delimited table", indicating that the input file is to be treated as a single, character-delimited, data table.
| Possible values | HTML colours |
| Default value | "E0F0E0" |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_EVEN_ROW_COLO(U)R" |
When AscToHTM is to colour odd and even rows in the tables that it generates
different colours (see Colour data rows), this identifies the colour
of the even numbered rows.
See also :-
Default TABLE odd row colour.
| Possible values | Number of columns 0,1... |
| Default value | 0 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | (only available by editing policy file) |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_HEADER_COLS" |
This tells AscToHTM how many columns in each table should be highlighted
as "header" columns using <B> ... </B> markup inside the table cells.
Normally this is 0.
| Possible values | Number of rows 0,1.... |
| Default value | 0 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_HEADER_ROWS" |
This policy tells AscToHTM how many lines should be treated as header
lines and placed in <TH> .. </TH> markup.
The program will treat a small number of lines of text above a line as header automatically, so you only need this if that doesn't work.
If set, this value will apply to all tables.
| Possible values | Attributes to add to the <TABLE> tag. |
| Default value | Automatic |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
(Only applies to HTML generation)
This option specifies any HTML attributes that should be added to each <TABLE> tag that is created. This can be used to customize the table's behaviour and appearance.
For example you can add the necessary JavaScript attributes to add the ability to sort the table.
See also Default TABLE html cell attributes
| Possible values | Attributes to add to the <TABLE> tag. |
| Default value | Automatic |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
(Only applies to HTML generation)
This option specifies any HTML attributes that should be added to each cell in the tables that are create, that is, to the <TH> and <TD> tags that are created.
This can be used to customize the table's behaviour and appearance. For example you can add the necessary JavaScript attributes to add the ability to sort the table.
| Possible values | <layout description> |
| Default value | 0 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Tables |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_LAYOUT" |
This policy tells the program what the column structure is for any tables
in the file. This will only work if all tables in the file have the same
structure.
The <layout description> takes the form
<number of columns>,"<col 1 spec>","<col 2>",.....
where,
<Number_of_cols>
Integer number of columns
<col_n_spec>
Specification of the nth column. The
specification must be contained in quote.
Currently the specification consists of
- the end position of the column.
More may be added in later versions
An example would be
Default TABLE layout : 3,"6","21","32"
which describes a 3-column table with column boundaries at the 6th, 21st and 32nd character positions.
If the policy is used the layout will apply to all tables in the file. For this reason it is normally better to place an equivalent "TABLE_LAYOUT" pre-processor directive between BEGIN_TABLE...END_TABLE directives for the table it applies to.
| Possible values | HTML colours |
| Default value | "F0F0F0" |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_ODD_ROW_COLO(U)R" |
When AscToHTM is to colour odd and even rows in the tables that it generates
different colours (see Colour data rows), this identifies the colour
of the odd numbered rows.
See also :-
Default TABLE even row colour.
| Possible values | Table width in pixels or as a % of screen width |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Tables |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Table generation |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TABLE_WIDTH" |
This tells AscToHTM what value to use for the WIDTH attribute of the table.
The WIDTH is specified either as a number (of pixels) or as a percentage (of screen width). Thus "400" and "75%" are both valid values (without the quotes)
| Possible values | One line per character in the form 'char' weak/strong} |
| Default value | '-' (weak) |
| Policy scope | Fixed analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> General Layout |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
This policy will probably be replaced in future versions
This specifies the characters used to detect "definitions". A definition line is a single line that appears to be defining something. Usually this is a line with either a colon (:) or an equals sign (=) in it. For example
IMHO = In my humble opinion
Address : Somewhere over the rainbow.
The character can be marked as "Strong" or "weak". Strong means such characters always signal a definition. Weak means they only sometimes do this, depending on the position relative to the Page Width.
The user interface presents this more cleanly than the text in the policy file does, and the latter may be changed in later versions.
| Possible values | Local file Table definitions |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Config Files |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Configuration Files |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
New in version 5.0
Identifies the name of a text file which defines Table definitions that allow tables spotted during the conversion to have their behaviour and characteristics tailored in a number of ways.
See the sections on "Using Table Definition Files (TDF)" in the program manuals.
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Directory |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Directory List |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
When you have elected to create a directory file (see Make Directory),
this indicates the description of your document that is added to a META tag
inserted into the <HEAD> section of the Directory page as follows :-
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="your description">
This tag is often used by search engines (e.g. AltaVista) as a brief description of the contents of your page. If omitted the first few lines may be shown instead, which is often less satisfactory.
| Possible values | Comma-separated list of keywords |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Directory |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Directory List |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
When you have elected to create a directory file (see Make Directory),
this allows you to specify keywords that are added to a META tag inserted
into the <HEAD> section of the Directory page as follows :-
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="your list or keywords">
This tag is often used by search engines when indexing your HTML page. You should add here any relevant keywords possibly not contained in the text itself.
| Possible values | Local file containing JavaScript fragment you want embedding |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Directory |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Directory List |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
When you have elected to create a directory file (see Make Directory), this identifies the name of a text include file to be transcribed into the <HEAD> ... </HEAD> portion of the generated HTML page.
This allows you to place JavaScript in your pages (though you'll be a little limited as to what it can act on).
If omitted, this will default to any script file used in the rest of the HTML pages as set by the HTML Script file policy.
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Directory |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Directory List |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
When you have elected to create a directory file (see Make Directory), this specifies the text to be used as the HTML title of the Directory page.
| Possible values | Local file to be created with directory contents |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Directory |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Directory List |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
When you have elected to create a directory file (see Make Directory), this specifies the name of the Directory page html file to be created.
If omitted, this will default to "dirindex.html" in the output directory. Prior to V3.2 this used to be "index.html", but people complained when that overwrote their existing index.html files.
| Possible values | Local file containing HTML code to be used as footer |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Directory |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Directory List |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
When you have elected to create a directory file (see Make Directory),
this identifies the name of a text include file to be transcribed into
the HTML file at the bottom of the <BODY> ... </BODY> portion of the
generated HTML page.
This can be used to add "return to home page" links, and contact addresses to your HTML pages.
If omitted, this will default to any header file used in the rest of the HTML pages as set by the HTML header file policy.
| Possible values | Local file containing HTML code to be used as header |
| Default value | "dirindex.html" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Directory |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Directory List |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
When you have elected to create a directory file (see Make Directory),
this identifies the name of a text include file to be transcribed into
the HTML file at the top of the <BODY> ... </BODY> portion of the
Directory page.
If omitted, this will default to any header file used in the rest of the HTML pages as set by the HTML header file policy.
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "Directory" |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Directory |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Directory List |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
When you have elected to create a directory file (see Make Directory), this specifies the text to be shown on the hyperlink linking each HTML page back to the Directory page.
The default value is "Directory"
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | n/a |
| Menu location | Settings -> Diagnostic messages |
| Command line option | /SILENT |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies that all display and informational messages should be suppressed.
If selected, you will get no messages displayed at all, although these
can still be directed to a .log file (e.g. by using the /LOG command qualifier)
This policy is equivalent to the /SILENT command qualifier.
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Document details |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to RTF generation)
For conversions to RTF only, this specifies the Author name to be placed in the generated file's document details section.
| Possible values | Absolute URL (i.e. including domain name) |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Added HTML -> Advanced Options |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "BASEHREF" |
This policy allows you to specify a URL that will be placed in a <BASE> tag inserted into the <HEAD> section of the output HTML page(s) as follows :-
<BASE HREF="URL">
This tag is used to specify the base URL against which all relative URLs should be resolved. You might want to use this if you are going to copy the page to a mirror location, but not copy the pages referred to in the relative links (like images, style sheets etc.)
Ignored in RTF conversions.
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Document details |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to RTF generation)
For conversions to RTF only, this specifies the document category to be placed in the generated file's document details section.
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Document details |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to RTF generation)
For conversions to RTF only, this specifies any comments to be placed in the generated file's document details section.
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Document details |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to RTF generation)
For conversions to RTF only, this specifies the Company name to be placed in the generated file's document details section.
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Title, description etc. or Output -> Document Details |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "DESCRIPTION" |
This policy allows you to specify a description of your document
that is added to a META tag inserted into the <HEAD> section of the
output page(s) as follows :-
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="your description">
This tag is often used by search engines (e.g. AltaVista) as a brief description of the contents of your page. If omitted the first few lines may be shown instead, which is often less satisfactory.
Any DESCRIPTION pre-processor command(s) present in the source document will override this policy/
In a RTF conversion the description will be placed in the document details header.
| Possible values | Comma-separated list of keywords and phrases |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Title, description etc. or Output -> Document Details |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "KEYWORDS" |
This policy allows you to specify keywords that are added to a META tag
inserted into the <HEAD> section of the output HTML page(s) as follows :-
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="your list or keywords">
This tag is often used by search engines when indexing your HTML page. You should add here any relevant keywords possibly not contained in the text itself.
Any KEYWORDS pre-processor command(s) present in the source file will override this policy.
In an RTF conversion this will be placed in the document details header.
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Document details |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to RTF generation)
For conversions to RTF only, this specifies the name of the Document's manager to be placed in the generated file's document details section.
| Possible values | URL of a .CSS file to be used as the external style sheet |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Style |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> CSS |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "STYLE_SHEET" |
This specifies the URL of a style sheet file, usually with a .css extension.
Style sheet files are a new HTML feature that allow you specify fonts and
colours to be applied to your document. By placing this information in
a separate file, the same style can be applied to
The resulting HTML is inserted into the <HEAD> section of the output page(s) as follows :-
<LINK REL="STYLESHEET" HREF="URL" TYPE="text/css">
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | RTF |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Document details |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
(Only applies to RTF generation)
For conversions to RTF only, this specifies the document's Subject to be placed in the generated file's document details section.
| Possible values | Text string |
| Default value | "" |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy |
| Policy file section | Added HTML |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> Title, description etc. or Output -> Document Details |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "TITLE" |
Identifies the text to be placed in the <TITLE> ... </TITLE> markup
in the document header.
If omitted, the default title will be "Converted from <filename>". We did consider defaulting to the first line of text, but that rarely works.
However you can get this effect by using either of the Use first heading as title or Use first line as title policies.
The title can also be specified via the TITLE preprocessor command placed in the source document, which will override this policy when present.
If order the preference for the title is
- First heading (if allowed by policy)
- First line (if allowed by policy)
- Value of any TITLE pre-processor command
- Document title (if supplied by policy)
- Converted from "<filename>"
| Possible values | Text | string (up to 5 characters) |
| Default value | "" | |
| Policy scope | Fixed output policy | |
| Policy file section | File | generation |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Output policies -> File generation | |
| Command line option | n/a | |
| Related directives | n/a | |
Where DOS filenames are used this allows you to specify an up-to-5
character root to which any section numbers will be appended
(see Split level).
If splitting a document at 2 levels we normally recommend a 3-character filename root.
Thus MYDOC.TXT given a root of MYD would produce MYD.HTM, MYD_1.HTM MYD_1_1.HTM etc... which are all less than 8 characters and thus maintain some readability.
If no root were specified, MYDOC_1_1.HTM would be renamed to MYDnnnnn.HTM where "nnnnn" would be a generated 5-digit code.
| Possible values | 1 (not many messages) - 10 (lots of messages) |
| Default value | 5 |
| Policy scope | Dynamic output policy |
| Policy file section | Messages |
| Menu location | Settings -> Diagnostic messages |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Specifies the level of error reporting you want during the conversion.
The program can generate a variety of messages of varying severity to inform
you of the decisions it's made. These messages can be useful in explaining
why a conversion has gone wrong, but are less interesting at other times.
Whilst all of these messages are copied into any diagnostic .lis files created (see Generate diagnostics files) regardless of severity, you can use this policy to choose the level of reporting you want to see on your screen.
The value is nominally in the range 1-10 with a value of 1 showing few messages and a value of 10 showing almost all messages. The default value is 5.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Bullets |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Bullets |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates that alphabetic bullets/lists are expected. The program will
recognises (and distinguishes between) upper and lower case variants.
Sometimes lines that begin with a single letter are wrongly interpreted as an alphabetic bullet point, especially if it's followed by a punctuation character. In such cases you can either disable this policy, or edit your source code so that the single letter no longer appears at the start of a line.
See also :-
Expect numbered bullets
Expect roman numeral bullets
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> General layout |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates that paragraphs are expected to have blank lines before them. Where
this isn't true (e.g. on a text file dumped from Word) different paragraph
detection algorithms have to be applied, which tend to be more error prone.
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | Yes |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Headings |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> Headings |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | n/a |
Indicates whether or not a line that is wholly capitalised should be
regarded as a section heading. Capitalised headings will normally only be used
if there do not seem to be any numbered or underlined headings.
See also :-
Expect numbered headings
Expect underlined headings
| Possible values | Yes/No |
| Default value | No |
| Policy scope | Dynamic analysis policy |
| Policy file section | Analysis |
| Menu location | Conversion options -> Analysis policies -> File Structure |
| Command line option | n/a |
| Related directives | "BEGIN/END_CODE" |
Indicates that the document is liable to contain samples of program code.
The program will attempt to detect such code fragments, and preserve their
layout so that the code remains comprehensible, however this process can be
flawed, and often code samples are rendered as ordinary text.
Where the program fails to detect the full extent of your code samples, you can add the BEGIN_CODE ... END_CODE pre-processor commands