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Word 97 converter
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From: Mark Finnis [SMTP:mefinnis-at-medicine.adelaide.edu.au]
Sent: Monday, June 01, 1998 7:21 PM
To: Tesla List
Subject: Re: Word 97 converter
At 01:38 PM 6/1/98 -0500, Bill Noble wrote:
>instead of sending files all over creation, try looking on the microsoft web
>site for a word 97 converter that plugs into word 95 - I am pretty sure
>there is one there - I found a converter for macintosh, so surely there is
>one for PC.
Reasonable comment. However, I have looked at the MS site & can't see
anything but '97 add-ins. Me thinks this has something to do with the MS
policy of "forced updating" ...... ie. change the file format and *don't
allow retrograde compatibility*.
Seriously, I would like to know if *anyone* has such a beast. Please send
URL of its location to the list, I'm sure I would not be the only beneficiary.
By the way, MS will do things in the MAC world which it won't in the PC
world.....
reasons obvious ;-)
>And, I agree, RTF is a more universal format, but it is MUCH larger, so
>download time is longer. Word 97 (and 95) support "save as HTML" if you add
>in another program you can DL from microsoft's site - this gives you a more
>compact file and a more universal file, but it tends to reduce the
>resolution of the embedded graphics. And, it turns a file with graphics
>into several files.
To an extent, but then when you 'zip' it, you get much better compression.
eg. Terry's "Spark Gap" document:
Native Size Compressed
Word95 18.7 MB 4.9 MB
RTF 33.5 MB 5.7 MB
Reason is Word97 uses IStorage object model and graphics are stored as
independent IStorage objects compressed LZSS. When you zip these you gain
a little with zip's Huffman algorithm,
but nothin' like what you do to a native RTF file ;-))
End result is a "zipped" RTF file ain't gonna be much larger than a
"zipped" Word97 file.
By the way Terry, both Word97 and Word95 have trouble with files this size.
Not sure why, but must relate to the way they manage memory clean-up
writing IStream's. Both in 97 & 95 I get "disk full or too many files
open", with a 9 GB SCSI drive and 256 MB memory .......... %^^&*^%$
Microsoft :-(
What is more, when "saving as" RTF, the written file gets corrupted ... no
comment.
>Adobe PDF is really nice, but you have to buy a product from Adobe to make
>PDF files.
Agree. All people know they can get the reader *free* from the Adobe site.
So its only the authors who have to buy the writer ;-)
Cheers,
Mark
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Mark Finnis Hm: 61 8 82895205
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