Last changed 2 Nov 2011 ............... Length about 600 words (5,000 bytes).
(Document started on 27 Dec 2009.) This is a WWW document maintained by Steve Draper, installed at http://www.psy.gla.ac.uk/~steve/rap/fcal/main.php. You may copy it. How to refer to it.

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File formats for Fcal project

By Steve Draper, Department of Psychology, University of Glasgow.

There are 3 file formats of most interest in supporting this project: PDF, HTML (web pages like this), and Word (.doc) files. Word is likely to be the most useful for slotting straight into other course documentation, PDF tends to be the best for everyone being able to use the file directly, while tables on web pages will reshape to suit the window and font size the reader (end user) wants at that moment and deals with changes to the table without having to worry about fitting on a page.

I have looked at Excel (spreadsheets) too, but in fact they give less control over formatting to look good when printed and will be less easy than Word for just pasting into other course documents. Finally, if timeline diagrams become well used, it looks as if the drawing package within Word would be the medium for them (excel doesn't offer this).

Interconversions:

Word, html → PDF: using print commands, at least on my desktop, will do that directly.
HTML → Word: If you have a sample calendar as a table on a web page, then you can paste it into Word as a Word table by:
1. Use mouse to select the whole of the table on the web page
2. Open a (blank?) Word document
3. Edit menu: paste-special command: as HTML format and there you are. Only works if you select the WHOLE table (and edit it down later in Word).
Word → HTML: Save-As HTML from within Word works, kind of; though it gives HTML that is messy to edit.
PDF → HTML: You'd have to hand-edit in all the HTML tags that give a table structure, so it is cumbersome.
PDF → Word: I can't get copy and paste into Word to convert to a table with a format like the first (just the words go across). (I think it is because PDF copy doesn't give tabs or linefeeds.)

My policy here?

Provide Word versions of blank tables to get people going
To mount finished tables as Word and/or PDF because that is what they will have been finished as.
To additionally mount some as HTML if not too laborious.

I.e.:

Edit in Word, and provide template documents for that.
Display on the web in whatever format is convenient:
- Often PDF;
- Word if it would be good to let others edit starting from the example;
- HTML if convenient for its automatic reformatting.

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