TEXTCONV UTILITY

You've just completed the world's greatest Visual Basic program and have
given it to trusted friends for beta testing.  Your friends tell you the
program has real merit, except they couldn't figure out how it works!

You need a help file!

But, writing a full-blown Windows Help File is no trivial task (I, for one
have not yet mastered the art).  So, you look for other ways to put in 
some on-line help without having to spend weeks learning how the Help
Compiler works.

There are several ways to put "help" messages into a VB program: use Print
to "print" lines of text unto a form or Picture control, use MsgBox, or
use Text Box controls (there're probably others, but you get the idea).

Using any of the above schemes, though, is very tedious because you have
to create the help data within the VB development platform using string
variables and the like.  Very un-Windows.

One way to "fix" this is to use a standard text editor such as the DOS
Edit or Windows NotePad to create the help file text, then read it into
your program either a line at a time or in one gulp, then send it to the
screen.  This method works fine, but requires that you have the help file
available where your program can find it.

What if there were a way to use an editor to create the help text, then
somehow "convert" the text into strings that VB can compile?  TextConv is
just such a utility.

TextConv takes your ASCII text file as input, turns each line into a
compilable text string, and puts the Sub header and End Sub trailer thus
creating what is in effect a "help subroutine".

TextConv "saves" its "output" on the Windows ClipBoard, where it can be
easily pasted into the General Declarations section of a Form or into a
Module.

TextConv was used to create its own help subroutine.  The file TEXTCONV.HLP
included in the TextConv archive is the "input" file for the help
subroutine.

I hope you enjoy using this program and find it as useful as I have.  It is
totally free, but it is NOT public domain (i.e., it is copyrighted by me.
Oh, one more thing: I have absolutely no liability for anything you do
with my program or any damage it might cause you should there be a bug.



						Jerry Rivers
						January 16, 1995
