[Freecats-Dev] Converting between MS Word .DOC / .RTF with OO

[Henri Chorand]

Hi again,

> > No. In fact, I'm not an expert in this area and I do not port myself.

I'm no porting expert either :-)

> > But KDE 3 is already available on Darwin and OS X:
> > http://dot.kde.org/1022869694/
>
> That is indeed the X11 installation through Fink. It is not
> really a port to OS X; it is a port that allows Fink to instal
> l it for the X11 client on OS X.

Because I'm no porting expert, I only know that developing with some
portable IDE builders and libraries enable one to produce portable code
(contrarily to other options), with often minor issues arising.

This is why we ended up deciding there was nothing to expect from
ForeignDesk stuff, for instance, apart from possibly recycling ideas &
algorithms by examining bits of source code.

> Henri's questions were more about using Kbabel native on OS X.

True - OS X and Win 32.

> It is not advisable to have to pass through the X11 client, since
> that limits the possibilities in terms of word processors available.

I can't tell - but we're not necessarily talking about word processors here.

OO is not perfect, but at least it's being ported. MS Office won't be ported
on Linux any time soon, and one might even rightly ask questions about the
future versions of MS Office being ported to Mac OS X. This is the kind of
events we can only see happening, without being able to do anything on our
own.

> When I translate, 99% of the documents I receive are Word docs.
> I would rather use Word than convert the docs, with the problems
> that may occur. I'm not yet convinced that OO can convert
> _everything_ from a Word doc into RTF. I have seen several
> articles saying that it can't.

For us at Kemper DOC, it's about 60%, so it's also a major issue. Still,
some of them are exports of DTP files, so this situation might change some
day, if ever the free software community works on conversion filters.
A large number of files are WinHelp source files, so in fact they're RTF,
much more documented.

I know a little more about OO's compatibility with MS Word format. From what
I could see in several reviews, its weak points are:
- Word macros
- embedded objects

But anyway, our main aim remains a standalone, interactive translation
editor.

Wordfast should soon become a viable option on the Mac - all the more if
Yves Champollion decides to make it compatible with a Free CATS TM server,
which I hope he'll do.


Regards,

Henri