![](https://seccdn.libravatar.org/avatar/58be8f30cb1aa754da000bc74387066d.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On Wed, Jan 12, 2000 at 07:28:11PM +0100, Bo?tjan Müller [NEONATUS] wrote:
Allthough mswordview does display a lot of pages - at least the text there is actually no programe in linux that I have tried that would "properly" (by that I mean to display fonts and/or images, tables, ...) display word docs.
After years of filtering .doc files using 'strings | fmt' or somesuch, I was pleased to find mswordview for a way to glimpse inside those files. I've used Applixware with fairly good results, and will probably try StarOffice if mswordview doesn't do it well enough, in future. <rant> MS Word uses an undocumented (by design) pseudo filesystem data structure which seems to change frequently. I would be surprised if anything other than MS Word itself (and only the same version) could display a Word .doc file _perfectly_.
That is actually 2 bad couse most of my country uses doze and like the rest of the world every third person attaches *.doc files to e-mail and I really wouldn't like to run StarOffice every time just to see 4 lines of text ;) (not that SO would work everytime - at least not for me).
It amazes me that people are (unknowingly) willing to trust their documents to an undocumented, proprietary, and continuously changing format. Ultimately, you _need_ MS Word to handle this stuff, which is no accident. <lame analogy> If information/data were money, then MS Word would be the Bank of Redmond, and people are converting their information/wealth to DOC certificates. Other banks (Unix Filters Trust, Bank of StarOffice, etc.) can be used, but the full value can only be redeemed by the issuing Bank. In the Perl world, they say "only perl can parse Perl", but that's due to the complexity of Perl, which admittedly does change over time, and not to the hiding of Perl's innards. Saying "only Word can read Word" wouldn't be far off, IMHO. I have the utmost respect for the efforts to handle DOC files, but they'll always be at least a step behind Word. Heck, even Word doesn't handle Word documents very well if the versions are not the same (in my limited experience). </rant>
I hope anyone has some better experience with some word converter/vewver for linux and can help all of us that are forced to view doc files out.
-- Ken Irving jkirving@mosquitonet.com -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/