johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine) (09/04/90)
Has anyone ever seen software to translate between MS Word and troff? I
realize that a perfect translation from troff to anything is well-nigh
impossible, but a straightforward mapping between -ms or -mm macros and font
changes on the one hand and Word style sheets on the other should be possible
and would handle the vast majority of the work. Also, there are nits like
turning sets lines of troff input into Word paragraphs that are entirely
mechanical.
I've heard of word perfect <-> tex (or latex, maybe) but would rather cut
down the number of steps, since translation always gets cruddier each layer
you go. (Even Word -> DCA -> WP is pretty poor, since you lose all the
styles and get some programmer's idea of tab stops.)
If nothing like this exists, if I have the time I'll try to pry the Word
document format from MS and hack something up myself.
--
John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, +1 617 864 9650
johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us, {ima|spdcc|world}!esegue!johnl
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