PDF and PS are proprietry but open formats for which there are freely available readers for /all/ platforms. There are few tools for dealing with .doc's on nix and none to produce them.

There are free tools for creating these too. The LDP uses tools to take the SGML source, apply a suitable document definition and produce : - HTML (multi-page) - HTML (single-page) - ASCII - pdf - RTF - PS All using freely available tools. I think the PS and PDF formats use TeX though - so they are quite beefy tools, but they are available. It is possible to convert PS files (print to file) to pdf using adobes distiller (if you have the money) - but also using ghostscript (if you have the time). Never used these tools myself, but I have seen the outputs on a document of mine (written for the LDP). Kevin. Northants LUG