Eudorify 1.1
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This is the information page for Jeff Lomicka's "Eudorify" process and program, which converts OpenMail folders into Eudora Light folders.
Last revised July 25, 1996 - Eudorify has been upgraded to version 1.1 in order to support both OpenMail Mobile and non-mobile OpenMail.
Revised July 24, 1996 - See new, easier instructions for converting binary attachments.
Note: Printing this file from Netscape tends to leave out some text around step 10 and in the follow-up. I haven't been able to figure why, nor how out how to work around the problem. If you are reading a hardcopy, you should be aware of this.
What This Procedure Does
The following procedure can be used to convert your Macintosh OpenMail Mobile mail folders to Eudora folders. Please follow the procedure carefully. Not all of the steps are obvious!
This procedure converts one folder at a time. If you convert a folder that contains other folders, it will be "flattened", which is to say, all messages in enclosed folders will appear in the same Eudora folder. You have to decide what level to preserve. For example, I had a MAIL 1995 folder, inside of which were folders for September, October, November, and December. I chose to convert the higher level "MAIL 1995" folder, so all my 1995 mail is in the same Eudora folder. Eudora is fast enough that having an entire year in one folder isn't so bad. However, you may choose instead to keep individual subfolders separate by converting them individually.
The first procedure moves the text of messages to Eudora. Also described is a means for moving your binary attachments into the Eudora attachments folder.
You will need to download the following two components:
and
Print2Pict version 3.7.1
and
Eudorify version 1.1
Step 1:
Install "Print2Pict" version 3.7.1 according to the author's instructions. Installation is easy: After unpacking the kit into a folder,
- move the "Print2Pict 3.7.1" file to the Extensions folder in the system folder of your boot disk.
- In the chooser, select "Print2Pict 3.7.1" as your printer.
- We will be using the "print to text" extension, so we need to load the Print2Pict extensions. From the finder's FILE menu, select "Page Setup", from there, click on "options".
- In the options dialog, find the "extensions" pane and select it.
- From there, choose "Select...", and find and open the folder "P2P Extensions" in the "Print2Pict 3.7.1f" folder, and select it.
- Close your way out of Page Setup.
Step 2:
Go into OpenMail Mobile.
Step 3:
- In the "Configure" menu, choose "Printer...".
- In the printer configuration dialog, be sure "Use Macintosh printer" is selected, and that "Print header on each page" is NOT selected. See example below.
- It is very important that OpenMail does NOT print a header on each page!
Step 4:
Choose a folder to convert. Display that folder's PARENT folder in the right-hand pane of the main window, and select, but do not open, the folder to be converted. See below, showing OpenMail ready to print the "Mail 1995" folder:
Step 5:
Select "Sort By Date" and do not reverse the order of the sort.
Step 6:
Choose PRINT from the FILE menu. Set the page size to "US Letter", and the disposition to "Print to Text". Initiate the print.
If "Print to Text" is not available in the disposition menu, then Print2Pict is not installed correctly. In that case, go back to step 1 and configure the P2P Extensions folder.
Step 7:
OpenMail will very likely put up a message like this:
This is a lie. The real problem is some kind of error reading a corrupt message. In order for the conversion to complete, you have to find the corrupt message and delete it. This isn't too hard:
- the printing process will have created a file on the desktop called "OpenMail*Openmai*001". Drag this file to a text editor, such as BBedit light. (The file is usually too big for SimpleText).
- Go to the end of the file, and note the date, time, and author of the last message listed there.
- In openmail, locate this message. Open messages before and after this message - within about 10 messages either side you will find one that fails to open with an "error 13" or some other error.
- Open the messages by clicking on them, not with PREV and NEXT buttons, because PREV and NEXT often fail on the wrong message.
- When you find the bad message, delete it.
- Close and delete the "OpenMail*Openmai*001" file, and restart step 6.
Step 8:
If OpenMail completed the print without errors, use the finder to rename the "OpenMail*Openmai*001" print file to the desired name of the Eudora folder you wish to create.
Step 9:
Use the Finder's "Duplicate" command, in the "File" menu, to make a backup copy of the file, in case something goes wrong in step 10.
Step 10:
Drag the original print file to the "Eudorify" icon. It should run to completion without opening any windows or printing any messages. If it prints any messages, then there is something about your mail file that it doesn't like, and you should contact me
about it. However, since I no longer have access to OpenMail, there may be very little I can do to help.
Step 11:
Drag the now converted print file to the "Eudora folder" in the "System folder".
Step 12:
Start Eudora. If it is already running, you must quit and restart.
- In the "Mailbox" menu, you should find your converted folder listed. Open it.
- Eudora will pause for a while as it computes the ".idx" file for this new mailbox.
- If you have a large file, it may run out of memory during this process, in which case you should give it more memory and try again.
- If this completes without errors, your folder is converted.
Before conversion:
After conversion:
Repeat this process starting at step 4 for all mail folders you wish to convert.
Follow-Up
- After converting, you should look around in Eudora and make sure it seems as if all messages are there. You may have to specify "sort by date" in Eudora.
- Don't forget to go back to the Chooser and re-select your preferred printer, usually either HP Laserjet or Laserwriter 8.
Don't Forget About Binary Attachments
Do not forget - we have not yet saved your binary attachments. Before you decide to delete your old OpenMail folders, you need to recover the binary attachments.
Here's one way to save your attachments:
- In OpenMail, select the folder that you converted.
- In the "Mail" menu, choose "Forward To", this opens a message forwarding window with the selected folder in the message parts field.
- Address the message as a MIME encoded to your Eudora account, using the form "/mime(iname@yourdomain.com)", where iname@yourdomain.com is your outside Internet mail address that is read by Eudora.
- Send the message from open mail.
- Wait a while, then in Eudora, check for new mail. If the mail has arrived, it will now download all your old mail and dump all your attachments into your Eudora attachments folder.
- The messages will also arrive as some number of individual messages from yourself in your inbox. These contain the text of the messages, which presumably you have already converted. These messages can all be deleted.
- Repeat this for all folders you are converting.
Note that the connection between the attachments and the original messages is lost. You will not be able to get at an attachment by double-clicking on it in the originating message.
Some of you may be wondering why Eudorify uses the "Print2Pic" hack as the source material for the conversion instead of using the text of the messages that are received through this attachment saving process. The reason for this is that OpenMail doesn't preserve the date and time of individual messages in a folder when you forward a folder with MIME encoding.
This process, and the Eudorify program, developed by Jeffrey Lomicka.
If you found it useful, please express your appreciation.