on Sat, Mar 24, 2001 at 10:53:41AM +0000, Keith O'Connell (keith_oconnell@bigfoot.com) wrote: > Hi, > > I need to be able to read, and compose MS compatible documents. I have > pretty much decided that the path of least resistance for me will be > Star Office. > > I cannot find it in the 2.2r2 distribution. Is it in there but I am > too blind to see? If not is it available in deb format somewhere, and > if so what would be the correct location to add to my "sources.list" > to keep current? StarOffice, that bloated stuck pig of an office suite, isn't packaged. It probably offers the best compatibility with MS file formats, however. Define "MS Compatible". Ted and AbiWord will create and edit RTF documents. MS Word nominally works with HTML, though the HTML it produces defies description, not to mention definition as HTML. You can use 'tidy' plus a special mode to rationalize MSWord HTML, though in my experience, the input breaks the rationalizer as often as not. And, rumors to the contrary notwithstanding, MSFT will read text files. Tools such as mswordview and catdoc will render MS Word files to text, with varying degrees of accuracy dependin on fast save features used by the author (but can be used to reveal potentially interesting information to you). It's always amusing to send back an ASCII-rendered document to someone who agonizes over every last physical detail of layout.... I'd argue that the level of compatibility depends on how obsequious you need to be to the recipients. For clients, they may set the rules. For vendors, you do. For other collaborators, pecking order rules. Or you can just be Yet Another Prick For Open Standards like me. -- Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org
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