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An anonymous reader writes:
"One important aspect of Free software is open collaboration and the pooling of efforts. There are several open source word processors available and they all need to import and export the ubiquitous MS Word format. To try and avoid duplicating efforts, developers from the Abiword, wvWare and Kword projects have been talking with regard to pooling their efforts in
writing filters
."
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Abiword, wvWare and KWord Authors to Collaborate
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Re:Error in article
Score:
by
Anonymous Coward
writes:
But seriously, what good does
.doc format do for _anyone_? Take away the fact that g00ns all over the planet use word, and you're left with nothing.
IMHO,
.doc filters are a technical solution for a social problem.
Personally, I use XEmacs to write all my papers in various SGML DTD's, and I couldn't be happier.
News Flash!
Score:
by
Anonymous Coward
writes:
on Saturday June 09, 2001 @09:40AM (
#164079
This just in! Open Source developers realize they're after a common goal, and decide to
cooperate
and
combine efforts
(it's about bloody time
:)
Share
See OpenDWG for success
Score:
by
mikael
( 484 )
writes:
Idon't understand why the makers of Office-like applications haven't done like the CAD-business. They created the
OpenDWG
[opendwg.org]alliance in order to reverse-engineer Autodesk's proprietary
.dwg-format for storing CAD-drawings and succeeded with the task. Mabye an OpenDOC (no pun intended, apple) alliance would speed up the acceptance and usability of open alternatives to MS-Office.
Mikael
Re: Then We Need Meta-Tools/Techniques
Score:
by
nitsuj
( 966 )
writes:
Most commonly used to parse (unambiguous computer) languages, but a word file is alot less complicated then a language I can assure you
:)
Actually, I would estimate the complexity of the Word format as greater than that of the English language (even including all the variants). It's the most incomprehensibly complicated, poorly documented (and frequently misdocumented), train wreck of a file format in the history of this universe, which no one could ever possibly hope to merely even make hypothetical conjectures at its actual implementation. It is a manifestation of evil; there is no other explanation. (By the way, I have code in wvWare.)
Lyx does this
Score:
by
hawk
( 1151 )
writes:
While it was originally a latex front end, lyx is now pretty much full-featured. It still prints by exporting X, but can output another couple of formats as well. It also imports almost all latex (I don't think there are any known problems). There isn't even a vague interest among devlopers to import word, though . . .
hawk
Re:How about having a unified format?
Score:
by
Kojo
( 1903 )
writes:
That is, when the different word processors from the different desktop environments save, they should save to the same file format.
Another advantage of this approach would be that all the word processors could use the same (or a very similar) filter to and from other non-*nix software. Sounds like a good idea to me.
BTW, doesn't Open Office use a compressed XML file to store it's documents? I thought I read something about Word2K using XML as well, but I could be wrong there. All that being said to say this: Isn't one of the promises of XML supposed to be improved sharing of data? This could be a good use...
Free Office suites already use XML
Score:
by
Forge
( 2456 )
writes:
Am I the only Slashdoter here who knows that KWord has been using XML as it's native format since the beginning? Honestly, you can try this yourself.
1. Create a file.kwd in KWord. Make it complex and add pictures and stuff.
2. Rename it to file.tgz
3. Uncompressed and untar it and viola, you have an XML document and a bunch of picture files etc...
The rest of KOffice works this way. Negotiations are still on to get all the Free office suites on Linux to unite on a single file format. I like the KOffice scheam because it inherently produces small files (already compressed). Others have favorites.
As for filters. I think we should have a separate program for importing the dreaded *.doc files and have all the office suites call this program for that task. Why should they all waste time redoing the same function that we would prefer not be needed at all? (I.e. MSWord not so cumbersome and convoluted in it's document formats)
Re:Free Office suites already use XML
Score:
by
Forge
( 2456 )
writes:
Actualy I realy HATE the hiding of extensions.
They should also merge with "antiword"
Score:
by
Florian
( 2471 )
writes:
cantsin@zedat.fu-berlin.de
on Saturday June 09, 2001 @12:01PM (
#164086
Homepage
IMHO,
antiword
[demon.nl] is by far the best Word-to-Ascii converter out there. It even renders footnotes, can be used in pipes and is much faster than wvWare. The program is GPL and comes for a variety of OS platforms. As the moderator of a mailing list, I regularly use it to convert *.doc attachments. (One should patch majordomo so that it automatically filters *.doc attachments through antiword. It has worked flawlessly for me since more than a year.
It surprises me quite a lot that such a superb program is so litte known in the Free Software community.
Share
Re:Free Office suites already use XML
Score:
by
Tet
( 2721 )
writes:
I like the KOffice scheam because it inherently produces small files (already compressed).
No, this is an
apalling
design, and it's
the same flaw from which gnumeric suffers:
leto% file blah.gnumeric
blah.gnumeric: gzip compressed data, deflated, last modified: Thu Aug 3 16:20:22 2000, os: Unix
leto% file blah.kwd
blah.kwd: gzip compressed data, deflated, last modified: Thu Jan 1 01:00:00 1970, os: Unix
By all means use a compressed save format, but
don't
just gzip XML, a tar file or some
other standard format.
Every
application
should have it's own unique file format header,
that's easily parsable by file(1). Otherwise,
we're headed down the windows road, where the only
way to identify a file is by its extension, and
that's somewhere I really don't want to go.
I'd be quite happy if gnumeric/kword used a header
to say "the following block in this file is N bytes long and is a zlib compressed XML reqpresentation
of the data". But just using gzip plain sucks.
Re:Error in article
Score:
by
peter
( 3389 )
writes:
Whoever sends or points at a
.doc file more than likely has the capability to create a more useful version of the document. Simply state that the document should be published in a file format that is actually standardized upon.
This is all well and good (and I used to do it myself at school, where I am more or less justified in demanding that stuff be available to Unix users). However, using linux at work is very different. If everyone you work with is using some MS crap, the only way you can reasonably expect people to let you keep using linux is if you don't cause any hassle for anybody else. This means converting the docs yourself, either using your owm copy of MS Word (which was installed on the partition of your disk that you shrank to make room for a linux or BSD system
:).
I was in that position last summer, and I had to use Wine (for Lotus Notes, which is actually an interesting program), and boot into windoze every now and then to use excel. Lotus Notes mostly works with wine, and has an excel and word viewer, so that saved some rebooting. Converters like antiword are also useful. I sent stuff to other people in HTML format or just ASCII email, since the stuff I had to write was only stuff like short reports on technical stuff. I would have pulled out LaTeX and made a PDF if necessary.
#define X(x,y) x##y
XML more than formatting
Score:
by
Clansman
( 6514 )
writes:
It is also deep structure. Abiword
,for eg, also uses xml to markup its content but the resulting file resembles html much more than it does "data marked up with meaning" which is the essence of xml/sgml.
Problem that requires solving is not to replicate the type of replacement but to alter the interface of wordprocessors so that they allow you to highlight structures such as chapters and sub chapters, and so forth. None are offering this at all.
They don't allow you to apply your
/own/ dtd and associated style sheets / xslt transforms etc. This
/can/ be done - see wordperfect 2000. Not perfect but pretty damn good. generates xml output that conforms to your dtd.
The current free offerings perpetuate the visual only representation of data.
While its true that with some farting around you can write additional xsl to transform simple markup ito something else, in practice this hard: you have to make assumptions like when you see this means insert another etc. Always breaks.
You may as well stick to html with embedded css if you don't allow external dtds.
Jonathan
xml and html and java have nowt in common
Score:
by
Clansman
( 6514 )
writes:
XMl is just _not_ "fancy". It is a step in the direction of machine-readable "meaning".
HTML is a visual markup language concentrating on the concept of bigger and larger fonts, laying out the page etc.
XML does not inherently define layout - but it does allow at least one further tool to make layout happen. Typically this is xslt (there are others) and the output will probably html but could equally by more xml, rtf, pdf, ascii, csv, sql etc etc.
You *use* the processing lang you already know to manipulate the xml data. Thus all the biggies have or are soon to get the tools needed to use xml.
Thus you transform xml using an xslt processor itself written in java, python or c.
XML's implementation often proves the point that standards are often best written slightly afterthe fact but it really is usable now in a way that seemd very distant only a few years ago when the hype was *really* crazy
Smart
Score:
by
jjr
( 6873 )
writes:
on Saturday June 09, 2001 @09:06AM (
#164091
Homepage
But why not also see if they can also inlist Open Office. We that is if they will play nice.
Share
It's about time...
Score:
by
Lazy Jones
( 8403 )
writes:
Now the other 100.000 Open Source / GPL projects should do the same and finally produce a production quality application suite...
Re:How about having a unified format?
Score:
by
Fyndo
( 11748 )
writes:
I think what a lot of people fail to realize is that Microsoft has just as much right as anyone else to set standards.
Well, if you exclude, ANSI, the ISO, and all the other public standards making bodies from "anyone", maybe.
I read this yesterday or two days ago.
Score:
by
josepha48
( 13953 )
writes:
on Saturday June 09, 2001 @09:02AM (
#164094
Journal
They were talking about setting up an email mailing list, where they could talk about problems. They said that they could not do a library, because they user C or C++ and different technologies. They did mention that they would run into the same problems, and that they would discuss them on the list.
So there would be 3 different efforts still, but they would share knowledge with each other.
So what will they do when MS.net is up and open and people are using that?
Just imagine MS having access to your internal internet....
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Share
Re:I read this yesterday or two days ago.
Score:
by
Shadowlion
( 18254 )
writes:
They said that they could not do a library, because they user C or C++ and different technologies.
Actually, they said something more like that if the library ever did come to fruition it would probably be C++ based, but provide C methods for accessing the functionality.
--
Re:??
Score:
by
Mike Schiraldi
( 18296 )
writes:
Well, that's just a perfect example of how the so-called "lameness filter", while frustrating good users who want to post brief comments, lets crappy posts through like a sieve.
How can the Slashdot editors criticize web-porn filters and Napster filters for blocking the wrong people when they do it themselves?
Dump the braindead heuristics.
If you really want to curb AC abuse, make it so that AC posts don't appear on the main page until a logged-in user "adopts" the post and any karmic moderation that gets done to it.
--
This is dumb
Score:
by
Victor Ng
( 18609 )
writes:
I can't believe that people still care about what kind of language they need to code in.
C/C++/Java whatever. Doesn't it make sense to make something like a document transformer into a small CORBA service, talk XML for the result document and then we don't have the non-sensical language wars. I don't need to know that the document tranform was coded in language X. I just want it to work dammit.
Re:This is dumb
Score:
by
Victor Ng
( 18609 )
writes:
WTF are you talking about? If you have CORBA bindings in your language of choice, you simply use the fucking library. Where's the issue?
Re:Lag?
Score:
by
sabat
( 23293 )
writes:
Playing catch-up doesn't help set standards or even acquire market share
You're right. What I'm imagining is similar to what happened when the IBM PC BIOS was reverse-engineered: once we have very good compatibility, we can set the new standard. People (avg office-worker people) are sick of Word's Feature-itis anyway, and wouldn't it be compelling for a company to get to stop paying for Office entirely -- and just use, oh, AbiWord? Fast, efficient, does what you want it to, compatible with the Word everyone uses (95, 97), and free.
Not to mention: I really have doubts about companies wanting to store their documents on Microsoft servers across the internet, which is what MS is apparently planning.
Side note: never thought about this before, but just imagine: with the DMCA, reverse-engineering the IBM BIOS would be illegal, wouldn't it? No PC clones! I have to admit, sometimes I'm only inches from becoming a Libertarian.
---
Re:I thought Open Office had already this ?
Score:
by
sabat
( 23293 )
writes:
on Saturday June 09, 2001 @09:31AM (
#164100
Journal
All of them already have some form of import/export. The problem is: they all suck.
But imagine the threat to Microsoft if any of them -- muchless all of them -- could import and export MS Word documents
perfectly
What a world it could be, Microsoft-free.
---
Share
Re:How about having a unified format?
Score:
by
Carl Jacobsen
( 23360 )
writes:
Yeah, imagine what a horrible world it would be if everyone used the same format and we could interchange documents without any problems.
Uh, only if we're
all
using the same very latest version of Word on the same very latest version of Windows, on the same Microsoft-approved Intel-supplied hardware -- and then we get to play a big game of Simon Says -- "Microsoft says: okay everybody, time to upgrade, please enter your credit card number here."
I think what a lot of people fail to realize is that Microsoft has just as much right as anyone else to set standards.
The problem is that their "standards" follow the form of "here's our magic new standard format, it'll sorta do most of what you need, but only if you use it with our software. Don't bother trying to figure out the details of the format, because we'll change it at our whim, every so often, just to make sure that no one else's software will work with it. Even older versions of our own software won't work the the latest format, so everyone in your company will have to upgrade."
Microsoft doesn't
have
standards, they have proprietary formats. They don't want to promote and use open standards, they want to
own
the "standards". If they were willing/able to play well with others, they wouldn't be as hated as they are today.
I thought Open Office had already this ?
Score:
by
Khalid
( 31037 )
writes:
on Saturday June 09, 2001 @09:28AM (
#164102
Homepage
Or did I miss something ?
Share
Re:How about having a unified format?
Score:
by
mcfiddish
( 35360 )
writes:
I think what a lot of people fail to realize is that Microsoft has just as much right as anyone else to set standards.
Of course they have a right to propose standards for everyone to use. The trouble is, what they call a "standard" is usually a moving target.
Re:How about having a unified format?
Score:
by
joeytsai
( 49613 )
writes:
Yeah, imagine what a horrible world it would be if everyone used the same format and we could interchange documents without any problems.
Hey, if this were the case, I would be happy. My point is that you can't even interchange documents among different versons of Office.
Plus, as speaking as somebody that has actually had to work on the DOC files, I'd much rather a common standard be due to some merit other than monopoly bullying.
If the unified document format needs to be extendend, the desktop environment groups can get together and agree on something so the file format will remain consistent. Good luck getting that from Microsoft.
How about having a unified format?
Score:
by
joeytsai
( 49613 )
writes:
on Saturday June 09, 2001 @10:14AM (
#164105
Homepage
While it's great to see collaboration done for importing and exporting Word documents, if they really want interoperability, they should agree on a unified document format. That is, when the different word processors from the different desktop environments save, they should save to the same file format.
The reason while Word's DOC format is so important is because it's the de-facto standard in the Windows world. I'm hoping we're not looking to make it the standard *nix world, too.
So, it just makes sense that all the developers get together and agree on a standard format so whether or not my coworkers and I are using Gnome or KDE or whatever, we don't have to go through yet ANOTHER set of filters.
Share
Re:I read this yesterday or two days ago.
Score:
by
dominator
( 61418 )
writes:
This simply isn't the case. We've agreed on quite a few things, and we do hope to get OO people involved too. Some things that we've agreed upon:
1) We're going to use C++, and maybe do a C api too
2) We're going to use libole2
3) Should we need an XML parser, we'll use libxml2
There will be very little duplication of effort. Abi and KWord will both use libwv2.so and have their own filters that hook up to libwv, but the majority (98%) will be entirely shared, just like is the case with and shared library usage.
Dom
Re:Word Perfect 2000
Score:
by
treke
( 62626 )
writes:
Wordperfect 2000 is it's own can of worms, and frankly isn't worth the price. WINE is far to finicky to work reliably on that large of an application. Many things flat out won't work for me. Trying to open up a power point file in the presentation app caused a crash every single time. So did exporting to pdf. On top of thise I've only seen a patch for fixing the install and uninstall problems present on some distributions, nothing else.
Not to troll but...
Score:
by
joq
( 63625 )
writes:
What about reverse engineering
catdoc
[davecentral.com] or
Word2X
[alcom.co.uk]? I've been able able to open Word files without a problem with them, and when I need to save I download the files to my laptop as text to save them under Mickeysoft, otherwise I try to save them with StarOffice (which borks things out every here and there).
The program could use existing code with a tcl or Python shell to get it done, maybe someone should contact the authors of the programs (Word2X, Catdoc) and come up with a collaboration.
Lock stock and 2 smoking barrels...
Score:
by
joq
( 63625 )
writes:
Except that XML does seem to be an actual up-and-coming standard.
Ok this is probably way off topic, well it is, but I'll put some of my strong points on my arguements over XML, which are strongly opinionated (as is everyone's). One of the biggest problems I've seen with XML is that, many have already created massive content on existing languages, whether its XML, Python, Perl, HTML, and many have invested a large amount of money into the already existing languages.
In order for a company to feasibly make the move over from $INSERT_LANGUAGE_HERE over to XML would mean that their programmers would have to know it meaning it would cost them more to pay for their education in it (even though they could learn online please here this out) or hire someone familiar with XML.
Looking at the current scenario, many companies have done well without it, not to say it shouldn't be used, but just to give everyone a reminder on it. It's always going to be an extremely opinionated arguement, and points/counterpoints could run on for years. Same arguements go for JAVA and others, you don't neccessarily need them for one, and just because someone uses X or X becomes a pseudo standard should not mean that programmers should focus on X and forget the core basics of it all.
UML, XML, HTML, CSS, COOL, JAVA, it all boils down to needs, and XML is not really a neccessity, and soon there'll be another acronym toting the same claims as the existing ones, "The Next Best (overhyped) Thing"
Sorry if I sound like a troll I'm trying to be as sincere as possible about my thoughts on it, without sounding anti-anything (XML, or other) just my notes on it. I think the programmers should stick with the basics without getting all fancy.
jumping the gun
Score:
by
joq
( 63625 )
writes:
on Saturday June 09, 2001 @09:10AM (
#164110
Homepage
Journal
Your assuming things will move over to XML, and everyone is going to use it. Let us not forget about the standings when it comes to creating a so called standard, shtml, WML, and all those other acronyms I care not to type.
Share
Re:i know this is trolling, but...
Score:
by
wowbagger
( 69688 )
writes:
WAV is a rip-off of the IFF format started on the Amiga (only difference is that IFF words are in big-endian order, RIFF a.k.a. WAV words are in little-endian order).
Microsoft didn't come up with XML, they just adopted it.
Normally, I don't respond to ACs, but this was just too much.
Now, go back to smoking your astroturf.
Re:How about TeX
Score:
by
haggar
( 72771 )
writes:
Yep, damn shame. Ever opened any HP-UX manual? Like the looks? Okay, that's done in TeX.
It would be a much better world if all wordporcessors supported:
TeX
html
rich text format(but not the bastardized, newer MS implementations of it)
and, of course: SGML
Re:Free Office suites already use XML
Score:
by
jacoplane
( 78110 )
writes:
Naah man hiding extensions is a great idea...just imagine how succesfull annakournikova.jpg.vbs would have been without it!
Re:How about TeX
Score:
by
stilborne
( 85590 )
writes:
tex exporting is already supported in a few koffice apps, including KWord. they beat you to it =)
Re:I read this yesterday or two days ago.
Score:
by
brunes69
( 86786 )
writes:
said that they could not do a library, because they user C or C++ and different technologies
Why not just make a standalone app as a filter. It could accept word documents in, and output an XML formatted document and jpg images for images embedded in word. The XML doc could be an open standard, parseable by all open source word processors.
Re:Common Filter Output.
Score:
by
potifar
( 87326 )
writes:
LaTeX has nothing to do with XML. LaTeX is a document preparing system based on the typesetting engine TeX which was developed in the 80s by Donald Knuth (who else). XML is a much more recent innovation.
Re:Lock stock and 2 smoking barrels...
Score:
by
crucini
( 98210 )
writes:
on Saturday June 09, 2001 @12:54PM (
#164117
XML is not an alternative to Perl or Java. Those are programming languages. XML is a markup meta-language - a set of very simple ground rules for defining markup languages. It is already very useful. I'm writing an app that receives messages from a custom Windows app. Although the Windows programmers and I hardly share anything in common (they don't know what fork means, for example) we were able to agree on an XML message format with no difficulty.
And in case you're wondering, none of us really understand DTD's or the finer points of XML. If XML did not exist I'd probably be asking for messages formatted like RFC822 headers (Key: Value) and we'd run into endless problems with newlines, CRLF etc.
For decades programmers have been making ad-hoc markup languages and writing cheesy parsers that work 98% of the time. XML, which has exactly five reserved entities, lets us save a lot of energy and use proven standardized parsers.
There is very little to know about XML and it's nowhere near as complex as a programming language. If you've made a web page, you've written something close to well-formed XML. The only difference being that in XML every element must be matched by a closing element or contain a trailing slash. So
would become
Share
Re: Then We Need Meta-Tools/Techniques
Score:
by
OmegaDan
( 101255 )
writes:
They're called Regular Expressions and Grammars
...
Most commonly used to parse (unambiguous computer) languages, but a word file is alot less complicated then a language I can assure you
:)
Re:Smart
Score:
by
steveha
( 103154 )
writes:
How about also enlisting Corel?
Odds are against you. Corel sells WordPerfect for money; if AbiWord and the rest become viable contenders, who wants to spend the money for WordPerfect? It is arguably in Corel's best interest for all the free word processors to have lousy filters for as long as possible.
How are the WordPerfect filters? If they suck, then Corel could rationally join the filter crew, since good filters would then benefit Corel as much as anyone else. At least in that scenario there is some clear benefit to Corel.
Of course, if the decision is made by a stereotypical boss figure, Corel will mind its own fish and stay out. Why do something new and different? Could be risky. Continuing to do the same thing is always seen as safe.
steveha
Re:Free Office suites already use XML
Score:
by
steveha
( 103154 )
writes:
I think we should have a separate program for importing
I like it. This nicely end-runs the problem of library compatability for C++/C/whatever. And under Linux, at least, firing up a new process is
fast
, and you only run the import filter when opening a new document, so there would be no issues with speed.
steveha
Re:Not to troll but...
Score:
by
bockman
( 104837 )
writes:
where can you get an rtf->Word filter (probably to Word 97?)?
Why should you need it? Word has always been able to read an RTF. So if you write a document, export in RTF and send it to a Word-addicted coworker, he should be able to import it into Word with no problems.
The problem is that then he will want to send you back the modified document. If he used full-power Word (e.g. using the change bars to hilight the changes), even if he is willing to convert the doc back in RTF, lots of fomatting info will be lost.
Re:I read this yesterday or two days ago.
Score:
by
bockman
( 104837 )
writes:
Wy do not use an embeddable very high level language (perl(?), python, ruby)?.
A word filter is something that will need to evolve fast (to keep with changes in the original
format) and will need to be very hackable (to cover the special cases you did not think of). It does not need to be super-fast. All this calls for a VHLL, IMO.
Re:Microsoft unifying Open Source?
Score:
by
bockman
( 104837 )
writes:
It is not M$oft assault. Is that there is less money around in OS companies and/or groups. Now, instead of competing for supremacy, they are cooperating for survival.
Which shows that there is a silver lining in black clouds, afterall.
Re:Word .doc format support is nice but...
Score:
by
Daniel Dvorkin
( 106857 )
writes:
As another WP user from way back (WP 3.5 for the Mac is still my favorite werp of all time, with 6.0b for DOS running a close second) I say, "Hell, yeah."
Combining this with the above thread on XML
... maybe what the world really needs, in addition to open source suite projects, is an open source file translation project, with the goal of being able to convert all the common (and some not so common) formats to and from XML? An OpenDataViz kinda thing
... Something like this that really worked, and was genuinely open and cross-platform, with people contributing new modules to it for ever more obscure file formats (need to put your dBase files into a ClarisWorks spreadsheet? We can do that) would solve a lot of problems.
Re:How about TeX
Score:
by
mcn
( 112855 )
writes:
If you like micro-controls, try WordPerfect and open up the review code screen. Not close to TeX of course.. but you can fine-tune things you can't do in Word. And just like TeX, WordPerfect is great for producing long and huge documents. One tends to mess things up in Word (especially itemization).
Re:Common Filter Output.
Score:
by
mcn
( 112855 )
writes:
Don't think WordPerfect is based on a customized version of TeX. But I like to know the answer too, if someone knows it. The reveal code screen sure looks like TeX commands in some ways (eg, [BOLD]this is bold[Bold] vs { \bold this is bold}. Or rather, WordPerfect is closer to TeX and HTML, and its variants and descendants, than other word processors.
Re:Smart
Score:
by
bfree
( 113420 )
writes:
How about also enlisting Corel? Corel already have conversion routines for many formats but in their new cash strapped state you have to wonder how much it hurts their bottom line to keep doing all the reverse engineering. Maybe they are wrapped up in NDAs so that they could do nothing for a Free Software project, but if not perhaps ALL the Word Processing producers should combine their efforts in creating a libwpfile which converts all participants formats from/to an independant format AND holds the best reverse engineered conversion for all formats that don't want to join.
Re:How about having a unified format?
Score:
by
(void*)
( 113680 )
writes:
Well, at least it is an EXPOSED target, if you understand then point of standards at all.
Re:I thought Open Office had already this ?
Score:
by
SilverSun
( 114725 )
writes:
But imagine the threat to Microsoft if any of them -- muchless all of them -- could import and export MS Word documents
perfectly.
That would be indeed a thread, as not even MS is able do open a
.doc document
perfectly
(when using different versions of MSWord)
CHeers,
Peter
Re:How about TeX?
Score:
by
Animats
( 122034 )
writes:
on Saturday June 09, 2001 @10:25AM (
#164130
Homepage
Exporting to TeX is straightforward. Importing TeX is very tough, because TeX is a programming language, not a representation. It's hard to do anything with TeX except run it, which renders output. This loses the document structure. The same is true of PostScript.
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Re:Free Office suites already use XML
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by
stikves
( 127823 )
writes:
Am I the only Slashdoter here who knows that KWord has been using XML as it's native format since the beginning?
Well, abiword is also using XML to save data. Just open an abiword file, it's not even compressed!
Note:
There is also a gzipped abiword format, I am not talking about that
The good are are coming back...
Score:
by
stikves
( 127823 )
writes:
In the old days (windows days) every application semmed to be ablt to "talk to" and "incorperate with" each other.
Later I found the
true way
. There came Linux and after a painful 6 months I was able to do most of my job on the command line. The applications were still coorperating with each other. Oh, yes there was X, too with ugly but "coorperating" motif applications.
Then the
dark
side of the code emerged. We were all bound with project who do not like each other and all duplicating efforts. (
see: KDE, GNOME and 80 million media players
). I was unable to undestand all the *.desktop and *.nautilus horrors.
At last the sun starts to shine again. People start to realize that choices are good (vi/emacs/rhide) but code duplication (KDE/GNOME) and uncoorperation is not (*.desktop, *.nautilus).
I only wonder when the Moz/Konqi was will be over.
Not so open (OpenDWG)
Score:
by
driehuis
( 138692 )
writes:
The OpenDWG effort is laudable, but last I checked, the public won't get source to the library. Apart from the library not being available for the platform I use, it's not very sustainable: what if they fold? What if you upgrade and the libraries are no longer compatible with your new OS?
XML vs SGML
Score:
by
Frank T. Lofaro Jr.
( 142215 )
writes:
XML is better to use than SGML. SGML is very hard to deal with and parse. XML is more strict, and less likely to have interoperability problems.
Re:A good thing, too...
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by
Dr. Spork
( 142693 )
writes:
on Saturday June 09, 2001 @09:09AM (
#164135
The announcement linked didn't mention XML but I agree with you--this seems like the right thing to do. For almost anything that MS Word formats you could duplicate it exactly using html+css1, and I think this should be a priority. The thing is, this would make an excellent
independent
project; you don't need the gurus of free office suites to muck around with this. You don't even need to know anything about their particular software at all.
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Microsoft unifying Open Source?
Score:
by
e_lehman
( 143896 )
writes:
I wonder if the recent propaganda assault by Microsoft is drawing the open source/free software community closer? There have been a spate of these "new cooperation" stories lately. Perhaps differences in philosophy and direction start to seem pretty minor when Microsoft conspicuously brings its ion cannons to bear...
Re:jumping the gun
Score:
by
connorbd
( 151811 )
writes:
"last time you saw a tag" -- if you view source on this you'll see