Subject: Re: Mac DOCs
From: Tomas Frydrych (tomas@frydrych.uklinux.net)
Date: Tue May 01 2001 - 11:07:24 CDT
Hi Hub,
> On mardi, mai 1, 2001, at 10:02 , Tomas Frydrych wrote:
>
> > I think MacWord format is exactly the same as WinWord, but
> > everything numerical in it gets saved in big-endian fashion. If you
> > save a MacWord document onto a PC formated floppy it can be
> > opened by WinWord no problem (even if you just email it from the
> > floppy). On the other hand, if you save MacWord on a Mac
> > formated disk, Windows version of Word cannot open it.
> > Endianness is the only obvious explanation for this behaviour.
>
>
> Nope. How would you want Word to know it is writting a PC disk ? How
> would the move of a document from the hard drive to a PC diskette force
> the conversion by Word.
> I have already provided explanations.
What I said is certainly true for Word 6.0/95. A move from disk to
floppy does not force conversion; you have to save from Word
directly to the floppy. You are right, Word does not know that it is
writting to a PC floppy, but the OS does. This is in fact the official
MS method of sharing MacWord files with people using WinWord
found in Word 95 help file, and it works. If you just save a
MacWord 6.0 document to your hard disk and email it someone
using WinWord 6.0, they will not be able to open it. On the other
hand if you save it to a PC formatted floppy and email that file on
the floppy, WinWord will be able to open it. In the same way, if I
email a Win 6.0 DOC to someone using MacWord, they will not be
able to open it; however, if they copy the file to a PC formatted
floppy and then try to open it, it will work.
Perhaps MS learned the lesson with Word 97 and 2000, but I know
for fact that this the case with Word 95 files, because I was doing
Word programming for some folk using MacWord, and this was the
only way, except for mailing them a floppy disk, that they could
transfer my templates to the Mac. It was a real nuisance because
their whole network was Mac-only :-).
Tomas
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