Subject: Re: Word Exporter Project
From: Caolan McNamara (cmc@stardivision.de)
Date: Fri Mar 03 2000 - 02:25:29 CST
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Original Message <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
On various word export issues.
The default export is indeed the usual word 97 binary format which as
pointed out Abi has an online copy of. There are some extra flags
being used, which were originally marked unused. But for exporting
(and for most importing) this doesn't matter a damn. Be warned that
there are a large set of inconsistencies and mistakes in that
documentation. I laugh at the header and footer section, which
actually appears to document the old 6 format.
Also at www.wotsit.org there is the word 6 binary file format. Which
for most intents is the same as word 97 except there where there is
unicode in 97 there is 8 bit in word 6 (the same as 95 btw). And the
multiple streams in 97 are one single stream in 6. And finally
microsoft couldn't figure out their old list format so they had to
make a new one for 97 and munge it in. Similiarly header and footer
offsets were changed.
The main export of abi to a word format should be the binary format as
this is the one actually in use. Their XML format thingy to my mind is
mostly FUD designed to create inertia in the industry against working
on importers and exporters. "Why spend 2 years importing the format
when they will change to an open format within a few months", though I
did predict that they would do the moral equivalent of <xml
format="ms">RAW BINARY DUMP OF WORD</xml>, though I haven't yet
checked this theory.
Anyhow wv has most of the structs in place with Read_struct things. An
exporter probably could do worse than to add functionality to wv.
Maybe start with writing a simple document with no formatting
information by impementing appropiate Write_struct equivalents and
duplicate a basic table and document stream with some basic main
document text.
C.
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