Re: Docs To Go and Abiword

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/
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On Sat, 13 Nov 2004, r coyne wrote:

> Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 16:40:26 -0800 (PST)
> From: r coyne <duckingsnofair@yahoo.com>
> To: abiword-user@abisource.com
> Subject: Re: Docs To Go and Abiword
>
>
> (1) Has anyone ever actually verified that MS's (e.g.
> Word's) own RTF output complies with their official
> standard? I wonder if the problem might be that it
> doesn't quite, and some companies know this, either
> because they have an in with MS or because they've
> reverse-engineered it, and they're catering to an MS
> world, so they go with MS extended ways and features
> and forget the public spec.
>
> (2) Putting a .doc extension on an RTF file is
> confusing, though no doubt it does provide a modicum
> of convenience for some users. How about a compromise
> like calling it "[filename].rtf.doc", and/or make the
> menu item for it "...as RTF with .doc extension"?

I wouldn't recommend it.
Changing the menu label might work but this really isn't something users
should even need to know about.

Any file, even html can be given a .doc extension and MSWord will treat it
normally. This is a function of how msword used to work, they themselves
put more than just binary in .doc files (last time I saw it was a in a
version of Ms Wordpad but I'm pretty sure versions of msword did it too).

> Either or both of these would save the convenient
> Open/association, while warning users what is going
> on, so people don't have to keep explaining on this list.

We shouldn't need to explain it and I dont think it has ever really been
the cause of any significant problem but out of a sense of fairness and
honesty the developers always do explain the trick.

- Alan H.
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Received on Sun Nov 14 14:20:25 2004