----- Missatge Original ----- De: Tomasz Wegrzanowski taw@users.sourceforge.net Data: Dimarts, Juliol 16, 2002 11:14 am Assumpte: Re: Advocating FDL University-courses
IIRC .doc specification is available somewhere. There are obviously some minor incompatibilities between standard and Microsoft implementation,but that's true for every other format.
There are incompatibilities between different MS products, let alone anyone else's implementations.
But I am sure it connot be edited directly and straightforwardly
with generic
text editors (as GNU Emacs, Vi or... say Notepad).
Generic text editors doesn't mean *plain text* editors.
Yes, it does. Formated text, as you call it, is not text, it's binary. If you include MS Word in generic text editors, then you should include any program at all (MagicPoint, AutoCAD, your favourite adventure game). They all include some text somewhere in their files (even if only in the highes scores file). The distinction is there for a reason.
That would be silly - 99% of population uses WYSYWIG for such things.
99% of population uses WYSIWYG for a typewriter, not for a text editor.
You can edit it in OpenOffice, AbiWord, KWord and ton of other *formatted text* editors.
I've had trouble editing a MS Word file in one of those (plus MS OFfice) and then looking at it in some other. That's because
a) Word files are not intended to move from one computer to another, let alone, one program to another.
b) the format is not a standard, it's a moving target.
Word format is THE archetype of what is an opaque one, specificly
designed to
trap users' data.
Indeed.
It's not. It was designed with single program in mind but there's nothing in it that prevents other people from implementing the standard.
What standard? Who has agreed to it?. Who has a say in it?. Nonsense.
Hi,
On Tue, Jul 16, 2002 at 11:45:06AM +0200, xdrudis@tinet.org wrote:
I've had trouble editing a MS Word file in one of those (plus MS OFfice) and then looking at it in some other. That's because
a) Word files are not intended to move from one computer to another, let alone, one program to another.
b) the format is not a standard, it's a moving target.
Well, that's all only too true. But would it be possible to create a MS Word Add-In that a) Converts the content into some specified format and b) Qualifies as Free Software? Such a solution would reduce the "extra work" to create really free documents that was mentioned earlier in the discussion.
Bye Michael -- Freedom is what you make of it.
On Thu, 2002-07-18 at 21:28, Michael Kallas wrote:
Hi,
On Tue, Jul 16, 2002 at 11:45:06AM +0200, xdrudis@tinet.org wrote:
I've had trouble editing a MS Word file in one of those (plus MS OFfice) and then looking at it in some other. That's because
a) Word files are not intended to move from one computer to another, let alone, one program to another.
b) the format is not a standard, it's a moving target.
Well, that's all only too true. But would it be possible to create a MS Word Add-In that a) Converts the content into some specified format and b) Qualifies as Free Software? Such a solution would reduce the "extra work" to create really free documents that was mentioned earlier in the discussion.
yes it's called "save as ascii text" :)