Re: post 1.0

Emile Snyder (emile@reed.edu)
Fri, 3 Sep 1999 19:33:59 -0700 (PDT)


On Fri, 3 Sep 1999, Justin Bradford wrote:
>
> Word Export:
>
> How big is this to users? I think a lot of people receive Word docs, but
> don't necessarily have to send Word docs. Of course, for those that do,
> this is extremely important. Anyway, this will take a good sized chunk of

This is extremely important to me at least :) Seriously, word import but
no export seems kinda silly. The scenarios of interaction for me on an
open platform seem like:

a. I can't read or write Word format.
Fine, I ask people to give me a copy in RTF or whatever. It's a
pain, but it works and when I give it back, they can read it, and aren't
surprised by the formatting changes.

b. I can read Word, but not write it.
I accept a Word doc from someone, work on it, and give it back as
RTF. The get all bent out of shape because the formatting is all screwed
up.

c. I can read and write Word docs.
Whee! Small feathered and leathery cute mascots take over the
world. Everybody's happy.

Option b is, in a perverse way, almost more trouble than a. Don't let me
sound ungrateful though! AbiWord is looking really good; I'm using it on
NT and Debian 2.1 daily and haven't had it die yet. I'm very much looking
forward to a 1.0 release.

> code in wv, but nothing really new or too complex, since we will always
> take the simplest approach (no fastsaves, no weird SPRMs to simplify
> SEP/PAP/CHP "compression", etc).
>

That's good to hear!

Thanks for all the hard work developers,
-emile

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