> On 1 Oct, Allan Rae wrote:
> I understood you perfectly. I do think (hope) that XML will become a
> standard, let us hope that that happens real soon. Until then, maybe
> we could have a M$ Word importer/exporter.
>
Modulo some major limitations word2x, catdoc or MSWordview might do the job.
AFAIK structure extraction engines only exist in word2x but the other programs
have other advantages... the current advice is to have all 3. All are GPL but
a merge is not feasible anytime soon (due to implementation differences).
> The question of course is which one will come first, the MSWord
> importer/exporter or the full adoption of XML by everybody.
>
When I last heard XML is a standard like SGML. You have to supply a DTD (document type
description?). You need different tools for different DTDs :-) M$ could produce a
wierd word DTD that is very hard to import, for example by emphanising physical style
tags everywhere. Without having read the FS I *think* HTML can be repressented as a
"brand" of XML. (At least one current HTML checker is a SGML checker packaged with a
load of HTML DTDs).
Both HTML and DocBook are SGML but nestcape will not handle DocBook and jade does not
handle HTML. Welcome to propietry formats that can masquerade as open standards.
word2x 2 might get a XML reader and it's structure extraction engines, both existing
and vaporware, might manage the rest. [word2x 2 is
currently incomplete and non-working develware.]
--
Duncan (-:
"software industry, the: unique industry where selling substandard goods is
legal and you can charge extra for fixing the problems."
