jka@tesla.ece.cmu.edu (Jay Keith Adams) (06/21/91)
Originally I asked: > Does anyone have any experience with editing Mac Word documents in > WFW? If so, how well does it work? Do you loose lots of formatting > info when transferring documents between Win Word and Mac Word. I ask > because I'm thinking of buying WFW, and editing Mac Word documents is a > must. I went to the campus computer store and tried to read a Mac > Word document into WFW. WFW complained that it ran out of memory > while it was doing the conversion (is this going to be a problem). > Anyways, any tips would be appreciated. From the responses I received, the reply that was posted, and a couple trips to the campus computer store I was able to draw the folling conclusions: 1. Computer salesmen don't know the answer to this question. This phenomon was observed in independent computer salesmen working on opposite sides of the Atlantic and who could not possibly be related. 2. Saving/retrieving the document in DOS Word format is unacceptable even though some computer salesmen (see 1) believe that that is the best way to get files from Mac Word to Win Word. In particular, DOS Word format turns your tables into salad. 3. Going through RTF format, on the other hand, preserves most of the formatting information (including tables). I got the impression that RTF format worked equally well for transferring documents in either direction. 4. Graphics? Figures? HA! That's a good one! This is the one point on which *everyone* was in agreement. Figures are always lost when translating from one system to the other. 5. Officially, WFW (at least in its latest version) can read and write documents in Mac Word format. I heard from only one person who was able to make this work. It looks like your PC had better have a LOT of memory if you want to do this (I and someone who responded were not able to get this to work because of running out of memory). The guy who had done this successfully said that most of his formatting and formulas translated well. On the other hand, he had no luck in getting a document w/ formulas from Win Word to Mac Word (by saving the doc in Mac Word format from Win Word). - Jay