-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Tuesday 01 April 2003 12:54 pm, Anne Wilson wrote: > On Tuesday 01 Apr 2003 6:21 pm, Praedor Atrebates wrote: > > As I think about it, I don't see much basis for anyone to come up with a > > "universal" spreadsheet format. Certainly, OO/SO, gnumeric, and kspread > > developers COULD do so but it would be universal only to them and leave > > out excel and lotus users (M$ would have no reason whatsoever to support > > such a format unless OO/SO use really took off and they were forced to). > > Tex-based could be useful, as would a STANDARD use of XML, but I don't > > think any would be better overall than HTML for presentation, only for > > manipulation in a mixed environment. > > As a matter of interest, how did .rtf come into being?
Oddly enough, it is a creation of Microsoft intended to permit formatted document exchange across applications and platforms, predating pdf. It seems that once upon a time M$ really had an interest in cross-platform file formats. I don't know how long ago this was but it fell into the earlier days of DOS and Win 3.x somewhere. Though M$ still supports it, their most recent idea of what cross-platform document sharing means is someone running M$ Word on a Mac or PC and passing doc files back and forth...see? Cross-platform! praedor - -- Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense. -- Chapman Cohen Fingerprint: D170 2A02 B426 6AA0 5E68 3EDC 68AA FDB0 961E 4F18 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE+idTGaKr9sJYeTxgRAvxCAJ9MtZ0x5gGEmoCHoDMpSSqycP5kkQCeLyqx NK/I1VyjbWksyXnwkKpcq6Y= =VsV+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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