Ross Burton wrote:
On Wed, 2002-03-27 at 03:50, dave mallery wrote:
i havent seen anyone mention XML. both star and open office now use it.
it is open by default.
XML is just a specification for creating new file formats. The file
format which (Open|Star)Office uses is based on XML and is open, but I
would hardly call it human readable.
Ross
But to satisfy my original request, it doesn't have to be human
readable. I'm looking to get my Windows users to stop using .DOC format,
but I've got to give them something to use as a replacement. It needs to
be *easily* readable on Win, Mac, and *nix (e.g. easily opened via
MS-Word (cough gag)).
From what I've gathered:
.RTF is sortta open, but is a moving target because Microsoft (true to
character), keeps changing the unpublished portion of the specs
.txt is ideal universality, but is way too limited (no font changes, etc)
.PDF and postscript are great display formats, but they're not very
useful for actual editting. Besides, do most Windows apps (Word,
WordPerfect) allow saving to this format?
.HTML is an open, universal format, but displays differently in
different situations, and the default open method is read-only instead
of edit, so it's not as easy for average users to work with as the .DOC
format.
Abiword, Star Office, etc formats may be open, but MS-Word has to be
able to open them in order for them to become common.
Basically, there seems to be no solution. Perhaps the best solution is
to stick with the .DOC format, and for me to use Star/Open Office to
filter out any possible viruses on my end, and leave the rest of the
users to their risky behaviour.
Thanks for all the responses.
Kent
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