Subject: Re: Word Exporter Project
From: sam th (sam@bur-jud-118-039.rh.uchicago.edu)
Date: Thu Mar 02 2000 - 13:50:28 CST
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On Thu, 2 Mar 2000, Paul Rohr wrote:
> Sam,
>
> This is an interesting proposal. There seem to be at least two potential
> approaches to Word compatibility in play here:
>
> 1. Export to older (binary) versions of the Word format
> --------------------------------------------------------
> This way, users can edit and exchange documents with folks who have *any*
> version of Word, including older ones. This would also allow
> interoperability with existing users of any other products which support
> that format. Plus which, it makes for a great testbed for ensuring that
> we've achieved internal round-trip fidelity with the matching importer.
>
> 2. Export to the latest (hacked HTML mess) version of the Word format
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> This way, users can edit and exchange documents with ... who? Just people
> who've paid the big bucks to upgrade to the very latest version of Word?
> Ick.
>
> bottom line
> -----------
> Obviously, we can't solve every problem for everyone, but I think that
> option #1 would solve the needs of a *lot* more people, whereas option #2
> helps MSFT sell copies of Office 2000.
I appear to have failed to make one important fact clear - I HATE this
format. It looks bad, it breaks lots of different standars that I like,
and it's just plain UGLY. But, shockingly enough, it's open. Not only is
a text format (it is HTML) but MSFT has even published the pseudo-DTD.
The Word 97-2000 format, which is the prevalent binary format, is none of
the above. I have heard rumors of a Word 97 file format spec available,
but have never been able to find one. This means that writing an exporter
for the mess that is the Word 2000 XML wreckage is much easier than
writing a binary exporter. It should not surprise anyone that all of the
formats we export are text-based. Especially for a not-so-good programmer
like me, this is a much more manageable task.
I wish it wasn't like this. If I had a spec for the W97 file format, I
would work on that instead. But I don't. An I would like to get this
piece of compatibility to work, at least a little.
>
> In short, I'd prefer to see us focus our exporter efforts on increasing our
> compatibility with document formats that are already in widespread use.
> After all, the XML-style document format we want everyone to start using is
> *ours*, not MSFT's hacked-up mess, right?
>
> Paul
>
> PS: If you're still interested in going ahead with this project, please
> reread my manifesto on importers and exporters:
>
> http://www.abisource.com/mailinglists/abiword-dev/00/January/0486.html
>
> Did you mean to suggest that this particular Word format should be
> write-only? If so, why?
>
I'm not sure what I wrote to give you that impression, but I meant no such
thing. It's just that exporters are where we are deficent (with regard to
word).
Hope this clears things up.
sam th
sytobinh@uchicago.edu
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