Re: [seul-sci] For comments: .DOC

[xcalbet@inm.es]

  Hello Ross,

  The MS Word format is THE LAST real barrier for Linux to enter the
desktop. This problem will probably never be solved since MS will always
keep on changing the specs of their formats so the others have to play
catch up. The only real solution is to change over to another non MS
format, but this does not seem feasible now.

  Currently there is no other format as "good" and extended as MS Word
format to substitute it. Here is a brief overview of what I think

  - MS Word. It is very widespread, but it becomes virtually useless
  when editing medium complexity documents. The advantage is that
  almost everybody can have access to a MS Word editor. Another
  disadvantage is that it is not an open format and it is not well
  known by anybody except MS, so in the long run
  (2 to 5 years) your documents will be useless.
  - RTF has the same problem as MS Word formats. MS makes their own
  "propietary" RTF, so this is not a solution.
  - PDF. This seems like a good candidate, it is already quite
  widespread, but there are no cheap/free editors for it. It is a
  format from Adobe, the company that created PostScript, so it is
  probably very well designed.
  - LaTeX. In my opinion this is the best format for technical
  documentation right now, it is widespread, free and a lot easier to
  use than most people think (much easier than MS Word for medium
  sized documents in fact). The problem is a lot of people just refuse
  to work in a non WYSIWYG environment.
  - LyX. On a plain level field this should be the perfect replacement
  for MS Word. It is very good, almost WYSIWYG and the output is LaTeX
  quality (it uses LaTeX to print). Unfortunately it is free software
  and as such does not have much advertising and so it is not very well
  known. This would be the choice I would "enforce" if I could :=).

Since right now we are stuck with MS Word documents the best solution
I have come accross is using StarOffice. Its import/export facility
works quite well, but as you say it is not perfect, so some hand typing
must be done. The other text proccessors don't seem to import/export so
well (WordPerfect 8). We will have to see how good the import/export
mechanism in WordPerfect 2000, the new Applixware (version 5 I think)
and the new Linux FrameMaker from Adobe are,
but remember that we have MS Word 2000 and its new formats around the
corner!! Also these new solutions are not available for free, not even
as a demo (at least the import/export facility) so you are stuck into
buying them first and then see how they work. The new Abiword and KWord
are also around the corner, I expect these free software projects to
have much more success at importing/exporting.

So my conclusion right now is:

- Use import/export StarOffice facilities and change by hand the rest.
- This will probably not be a solution when you have to export perfectly
layout Word formats for complex documents!!


Xavier Calbet