> * converting .doc ->. txt and .rtf -> .txt is a must. IMO this > should be done by catdoc or antiword, one of which should be included > in the basic distribution packet of BL. Both programs are maintained > and try to keep up with the latest MS counter-compatibility > measures. > After reading this, I gave Antiword a try. This is a great utility. This is what you need for viewing those M$Word files you get, Steven. It's a very small installation (250KB) and download (93KB): I found a .tgz package at www.slack.z00.it/slack/downl . This is probably the best of all utilities for BL2, at least for viewing and converting M$Word docs. In order to create documents interchangeable with M$Word, I think Ted still leads the pack with its simple interface and fairly advanced formatting features. Back to Antiword: to test it out, I tried opening an advanced document with all kinds of special formatting - including lots of footnotes, special fonts etc - of several pages. The results were quite satisfactory: it turned the footnotes into endnotes, but preserved all the numbering. The French and German text displayed correctly: accents, umlauts and other special characters rendering just fine. I was impressed. Only the ancient Greek font would not display. But with a bit of tweaking, that could probably be fixed too. I don't know if Antiword was mentioned on this list before, but it is definitely the right tool for viewing M$Word docs on older computers (caveat: it only works with M$Word 6 and later). It runs in a console, and diplays the text within the console - no fancy interfaces. I was interested to find at the Antiword mainpage that it is available for many different OS's, including Mac, OS/2, DOS - and even Windows!
My limited testing of the app so far has been entirely positive. I strongly endorse it. James To unsubscribe from SURVPC send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe SURVPC in the body of the message. Also, trim this footer from any quoted replies. More info can be found at; http://www.softcon.com/archives/SURVPC.html
