[lug] anyone familiar with Word file format issues?

[D. Stimits]

rm at fabula.de wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Mar 14, 2002 at 12:24:35AM -0700, D. Stimits wrote:
> > I'm curious, if I were to write a library that outputs some document
> > style as Word, has anyone heard whether MS would try to file a lawsuit
> > to stop it (think conversion utility)? Though I suspect it wouldn't be
> > practical, the standards for it probably are not published, or if so,
> > probably incomplete or out of date.
> 
> I guess you'd need an expensive legal examination to get a more or less
> final word on that :-) But so you really need to export in Word format?
> The real danger i see is that this format tends to 'migrate' pretty fast,
> after all that's one trick to get MS customers to upgrade. Why not stay
> with RTF? Not only is it used as an exchange format for many applications,
> it's also the native styled text format for both the NextStep and Mac OSX
> operating systems. You even get extensive (but poor) documentation from
> Microsoft. I have some legacy database applications that export to RTF
> (bibliographic databases and reference programs) and so far haven't had any
> problems.

You convinced me to try RTF for what I'm thinking about, but I'm still
interested in finding docs on Word file formats if possible. Do you have
a favorite URL for RTF explanation (other than MS)?

D. Stimits, stimits at idcomm.com

> 
>   Ralf
> 
> > D. Stimits, stimits at idcomm.com
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