Re: MS word version supported in wvWare or Abiword

Hi Tim,

The 1.2.x branch is a little more stable, since it uses libgsf instead
of libole2 to parse the DOC's OLE2 streams. This cuts down on some
hangs and crashes.

The 1.2.x branch also has some security patches.

Nothing terribly major, though. If what you're using works well
enough, leave well enough alone.

-Dom

On Sun, Feb 24, 2008 at 1:30 PM, Tim Dionne <tdionne@collab.net> wrote:
>
> Thanks Dominic. I really appreciate your responses.
>
> Yes, we're using wv to convert from DOC to a custom format that
> externalizes the strings for indexing, and ultimately searching. Since we
> don't care about the visual appearance or the formatting at all, we will
> continue to use wv. We are, however, still using 1.0.0 with my patch. I
> would like to upgrade to the latest version, but that would require a
> profile change on our servers (to pick up glib and libfsf). Unless you
> think upgrading would provide a major improvement in performance (we haven't
> had any complaints about performance) or reliability, I think we would be
> content to stay with 1.0.0. We have experienced hangs from time to time,
> but my assumption is that most of them would be fixed with my patch. I
> could be wrong though.
>
> Thanks again.
>
>
>
> Dominic Lachowicz wrote:
> Hi Tim,
>
> Yes, AbiWord uses wv.
>
> I assume that you're using wv to convert from DOC into another format.
> Maybe it's TXT or HTML.
>
> AbiWord does a much better job at preserving the DOC's semantic
> meaning and visual appearance. It's capable of handling things like
> TOCs, floating frames, headers, footers, fields, footnotes, and
> endnotes. None of which "wvHtml" can do.
>
> -Dom
>
> On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 12:16 PM, Tim Dionne <tdionne@collab.net> wrote:
>
>
> Thanks Dominic --
>
> Like I asked Marin, how does AbiWord differ from wv? The home page for wv
> says that AbiWord uses wv.
>
> Thanks!
>
>
>
> Dominic Lachowicz wrote:
> The Microsoft Office file formats didn't change, really, from 1997
> until the recent OOXML specification. Because Microsoft cannot yet go
> back in time in order to promote vendor lock-in, wvWare (and thus,
> AbiWord) will continue to handle Office 2003 documents.
>
>
>
> web site, but can't find any official statements about this. I would
> consider using AbiWord to do the straining, but it seems like overkill
> since we don't need to GUI component.
>
> AbiWord is quite adept at doing precisely that. Its import and export
> facilities are really good, as are the number of formats supported.
> AbiWord has a nice command-line mode, and with a bit of hackery, you
> can turn it into a headless server daemon to do conversions for you.
> No GUI need be involved at runtime.
>
> Cheers,
> Dom
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
Counting bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the war drums.