Subject: Re: Export Word -> save as RTF .doc?
From: Paul Rohr (paul@abisource.com)
Date: Tue May 01 2001 - 13:18:16 CDT
At 10:14 AM 4/30/01 -0400, Dom Lachowicz wrote:
>>Jesper
>>
>>Im certain i suggested this previously but it was decided that Abiword
>>was going to do it the right way or not at all, i think its Dom's call
>>really.
>
>Thank you. Yes, IMNSHO Abi should either do things correctly or not at all.
Absolutely. While it seems like a clever fake that might "happen to" work,
it's cheating.
Caolan, Dom, and others have been putting a ton of effort into coding a
*real* implementation that will Just Work, so let's be patient and give them
the time they need to do this correctly.
>>Perhaps it would be appropriate to add this information and an
>>explaination to the help documentation (sorry, but im not volunteering)
>
>I really like this suggestion. Saving as RTF when we select "Save as .DOC"
>is a bad idea.
Evangelizing RTF as a workaround is a fine idea, though, and would probably
wind up as a FAQ.
>I've got some free time this week and I was planning on
>trying to get the DOC exporter to work a bit more. People are strongly
>encouraged to help.
Dom, is there anything you can carve out as a POW here? I'm not sure you're
far enough along for this yet, but it's a great way to parallelize the
needed work when the time comes.
In fact, sounds like the kind of thing where a current feature matrix would
come in mighty handy:
http://www.abisource.com/feature_matrix.html
Essentially, once enough infrastructure is in place, you could recruit
volunteers to convert specific cells from "i" to "i,e" as follows:
1. Pick a yellow cell in the "doc" column with just an "i".
2. Look at xxx to see how we import it.
3. Add code at yyy to drive the process in reverse.
4. Create a test document zzz to test round-trip fidelity.
5. Submit a patch which includes the following:
- your changes to yyy
- a copy of zzz
- change that cell to "i,e" and make it purple
- your name in CREDITS.TXT
6. Repeat. :-)
Would something like that help?
Paul
motto -- many hands make light work
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