stefano franchi wrote: > On Sun, Feb 23, 2014 at 1:29 PM, Rainer M Krug <rai...@krugs.de> wrote: > > stefano franchi <stefano.fran...@gmail.com> writes: > > > > >> 2. Whether to target Microsoft's Word XML format or the Open Document > >> Format (similarly XML-based) > > > > I would strongly argue for the Microsoft Word XML, as each conversion > > creates problems and inconsistencies. This said, if the conversion from > > MS Word XML to ODF and back can be done without causing problems in the > > roundtrip (i.e. the round-trip would then be lyx - ODF XML - MS XML - > > ODF XML - lyx)I would argue for the more "open" format which can be used > > on more Operating systems. > > > > I have been told that, in its most recent versions, Microsoft Word can > read ODF version >= 1.2 directly. That is, it can open, > edit, and save files in OpenOffice's native format. I have no means of > checking this assertion, as I have no access to MS Word. > Could anyone with such access give it a try?
In principle, this is true. However OO (I tested with Apache OO 4.01) cannot save in the latest Word format (.docx), and saveing as MS .xml results in complete loss of the equations. Round trip is best if saving to Word 97/2000/2003 .doc format. Word supports 3 ways to write equations: The oldest one is the EQ field function, which is easy to convert but rarely used in practice. The next is using the Equation Editor (standard for up to Word 2000) or its mature brother MathType which both create MTEF objects. The latest are Word 2007 and up equations (with a different object type OMML). And OpenOffice has its own equation editor which creates another object type, which cannot be converted to any of Word's equation types, at least not by Word nor by MathType (up to 6.7.a - current version is 6.9). However, Mathtype can convert to and from MathML and LaTeX. The newer Word equation object can only be converted to the older object type by MathType (AFAIK). An OO document, containing an equation created in OO, saved as MS .doc (Word 97/2000/2003) and opened in Word 2010 contains the equation but this equation is not editable in Word - for editing this equation one needs OpenOffice installed. At least after the round trip OO -> .doc -> Word -> .doc -> OO the equation is still editable in OO. And an equation created in Word is not editable in OO. Even worse, if one uses the newer (Word 2007 and up) equation format (which is default if one uses the .docx format), then saves as .doc, the newer equations are irreversibly converted to pictures. Hope that makes the problems more clear. -- Wilfried Hennings
