Date: 17 Feb 1997 12:12:45 +0000 From: Paul Richards <p.richards@elsevier.co.uk> To: peter@grendel.IAEhv.nl (Peter Korsten) Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: MIME applications for FreeBSD Message-ID: <57lo8n1via.fsf@tees.elsevier.co.uk> In-Reply-To: peter@grendel.IAEhv.nl's message of Sat, 15 Feb 1997 22:43:20 %2B0100 References: <199702130839.TAA00435@freebsd1.cimlogic.com.au> <199702121715.KAA00715@phaeton.artisoft.com> <Mutt.19970215224320.peter@grendel.>
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peter@grendel.IAEhv.nl (Peter Korsten) writes: > John Birrell shared with us: > > > > We are prevented from reverse engineering by the licence for msword > > (I guess, since other MS products have that clause). MS is unlikely > > to publicly document Word file format. > > Actually, someone (a student?) at the Technical University of Berlin > has described the general Microsoft OLE file format. He states that > this he isn't sure about the format and all variables, therefore > he calls it the "LAOLA" file format. (Check it out with Alta Vista!) > He also provides a library in Perl and a program to convert a MS > Word document into an ASCII file. Why go to all this trouble? I use RTF which is a published specification. If you need to do batch conversion of Word to RTF then use something like W4W (which is a commercial program) and if not simply load the file into Word and save it as RTF. In fact, you can get source code from Microsoft that allows you to write your own output formats by translating the internal (to Word) represenation of RTF into whatever you want. I'm curious as to whether RTF isn't actually used in some way internally to Word since a plugged-in driver has access to more RTF code than you would actually see if you save the file out in RTF format. -- Dr Paul Richards. Originative Solutions Ltd. (Netcraft Ltd. contractor) Elsevier Science TIS online journal project. Email: p.richards@elsevier.co.uk Phone: 0370 462071 (Mobile), +44 (0)1865 843155
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