Hi John,
I really appreciate this.
Cheers,
M
---





Begin forwarded message:

From: John Kitchin <jkitchin@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: December 16, 2015 at 6:38:51 AM EST
To: marvin doyley <marvinpas@gmail.com>
Cc: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
Subject: Re: [O] Converting paragraph to plain lis

Here is a solution that works on your paragraph.

#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp
(defun explode-paragraph ()
 (interactive)
 (let (start end)
   ;; narrow to paragraph
   (backward-paragraph) (forward-line)
   (setq start (point))
   (forward-paragraph) (previous-line)
   (setq end (point))

   ;; now move by sentence, insert number and \n. at the end go to beginning
   ;; insert a number and use C-cC-c to renumber the list.
   (save-restriction
     (narrow-to-region start end)
     (goto-char (point-min))
     (while (< (point) (point-max))
       (forward-sentence)
       (insert "\n1. "))
     (goto-char (point-min))
     (insert "1. ")
     (org-ctrl-c-ctrl-c))))

(defun unfill-paragraph ()
 "Unfill paragraph at or after point."
 (interactive "*")
 (let ((fill-column most-positive-fixnum))
   (fill-paragraph nil (region-active-p))))

(defun list-to-paragraph ()
 "Convert list at point to a paragraph."
 (interactive)
 ;; make sure we are at the beginning of the list
 (beginning-of-line)
 (let ((element (org-element-context))
       contents)
   (when (eq 'item (car element))
     (setq element (org-element-property :parent (org-element-context)))
     (goto-char
      (org-element-property
       :begin
       element)))
   ;; collect each sentence, minus the numbers.
   (setq contents (loop for node in
                        (org-element-property :structure element)
                        collect
                        ;; remove number and space
                        (replace-regexp-in-string
                         (regexp-quote (nth 2 node)) ""
                         (buffer-substring (nth 0 node)
                                           (nth 6 node)))))
   ;; replace the list, and then unfill the paragraph.
   (setf (buffer-substring (org-element-property :begin element)
                           (- (org-element-property :end element) 1))
         (mapconcat 'identity contents ""))
   (goto-char (org-element-property :begin element))
   (unfill-paragraph)))
#+END_SRC

marvin doyley writes:

Hi there,

Does anybody know how to convert a paragraph to a plain list, and vice versa. For example, I would like to convert

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse viverra consectetur euismod. Donec non tempor turpis.

to

1. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
2.  Suspendisse viverra consectetur euismod.
3.  Donec non tempor turpis.

In one key stroke, this would speed up my brain storming process.

Thanks,
M

--
Professor John Kitchin
Doherty Hall A207F
Department of Chemical Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
412-268-7803
@johnkitchin
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu