akm@comix.cs.uoregon.edu (Anant Kartik Mithal) (04/30/90)
This is both a flame as well as a request to Microsoft to get its act together. I've been working on a fairly long, complex document in WinWord (Word for Windows). I knew that at some stage I would have to make a Mac version of the document, and the following paragraph in the WinWord manual made me believe that that would be a cinch: - RTF (Rich Text Format), which stores formatting and pictures as ANSI characters; used particularly for Microsoft Word for the Macintosh files. However, when I tried it, I found that when MacWord read in the RTF file, it did not generate any graphics. Surprised, I called MS, and was told that it could not be done, first by the Windows people and then by the Mac people. Apparently, within RTF, WinWord uses TIFF, and MacWord uses PICT. I think that this is absolutely ridiculous. First, why MS should make a standard non-standard? Second, why can't its own products be compatible? Third, why is its manual misleading? One of the things that became apparent from the conversations I had with the support people, the Windows people don't have any idea what the Mac people are doing, and vice versa. Doesn't sound like good policy... It is sad that MS puts out pretty decent software, but are not completely up front with their documentation. For example, there are a number of switches in MS Windows which are undocumented. Not a good attitude towards us customers... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anant Kartik Mithal akm@cs.uoregon.edu Department of Computer Science akm@oregon.BITNET University of Oregon