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Re: [Groff] conversion to DOC format


From: Keith MARSHALL
Subject: Re: [Groff] conversion to DOC format
Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 12:10:19 +0100

On 05-Aug-04 Ted Harding wrote:
>On 04-Aug-04 Larry Kollar wrote:
>> 
>> Chances are, all these people are looking for is something they can
>> read into Weird. This is a dirty trick I learned from the AbiWord
>> folks a while back, but it works: create an HTML file, rename it to
>> whatever.doc, and send that. They'll double-click it and Word will
>> open it right up. So you can even skip the "open it in Word and save
>> as .doc" step if you like.
>>:-)
>
> I thought this was a delightfully sneaky suggestion, espacially since
> it would exploit that very feature of "Weird" (and thanks for that
> suggestion too!) which most sharply gets up my nose -- namely that
> it will silently and spontaneously do something which you would never
> in your right mind expect (and usually do not want)!
>
> However, trying it, I found (using Weird-97, which is all I have on
> that front) that it didn't work as described.
>
> Namely, I took a pukka HTML file ("wholefaq.html"), renamed it as
> "wholefaq.doc", copied it to my MSWin virtual machine, and double
> clicked on it as Larry describes.
>
> The result was the display, in Weird, of the raw HTML code plain-text
> fashion, in Courier.

I was intrigued by this too, and tried it with a copy of "intro.html"
(from Peter Schaffter's "mom" macro documentation) renamed as "intro.doc".
Using Weird-2000, it worked exactly as Larry described, so I guess that
Weird's ability to recognise and silently convert from HTML, regardless
of the file name suffix, was first implemented in Weird-2000.

> However, when I used the file with its original name "wholefaq.html",
> although double-clicking on it will open it in Internet Explorer
> (not what Larry would have intended), if I first started up Weird
> with no file, and then did "File -> Open" with "wholefaq.html" as
> target, it then converted this to a Weird file which could then be
> saved as ".doc".
>
> So, yes, it did work, but not unfortunately in the sneaky fashion
> which I had been hoping for! So sending someone an HTML file named
> as a ".doc" file to be double-clicked on would have left them staring
> at HTML, at any rate if they were using Weird-97, and this would have
> defeated Dean's purpose and quite possibly have spoilt his chances of
> the job. Nor, I doubt, would it have been particularly well viewed if,
> when sending the file, he accompanied it with instructions "This is
> an HTML file 'resume.html'. First start up Word, then, in the 'File'
> menu, open 'resume.html'." This would have been seen as altogether too
> much trouble ...
>
> However, as I say, this was in Weird-97, and possibly other versions
> may behave differently. Maybe for "possibly" read "probably" -- I
> expect different versions to behave differently, in fundamental ways,
> and unpredictably (which maybe negates "probably" ... ).

It seems to be pretty much guaranteed that every new version of *any*
Microsoft product is going to behave differently from its previous
incarnation, and frequently in ways which are not even backwardly
compatible, never mind forwardly. I remember when our Company upgraded
from Weird-95 to Weird-97, that a number of pro-forma documents had to
be rewritten from scratch, because Weird-97's interpretation of the
original Weird-95 format was completely unusable ;-(  I abandoned my
use of Weird after that painful experience, and now use groff for all
my document formatting needs!

It is certain that, if Dean were to produce his CV in a DOC format
compatible with the current incarnation of Weird, (Weird-2003, I
believe), then users of older versions would not find it particularly
useful, nor even usable!  IMHO, the only way to guarantee general
usability of a document is to provide it in an open standard format,
with plain ASCII text being the lowest common denominator; (any version
of Weird should certainly be able to read it, although it may not look
especially pretty).  Those organisations who insist on proprietary
formats are simply creating rods for their own backs.

For Dean's purposes, HTML masquerading as DOC is probably a good bet.
If anyone complains, he can certainly claim Weird-2000 compatibility
at least, so if they can't read it, then they must be using an obsolete
version of Weird, and badly need to upgrade!

Best regards,
Keith.



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