On Tue, Jul 16, 2002 at 10:44:22AM +0200, Guillaume Ponce wrote:
Microsoft Word format is completely ok as transparent copy. You can use it with many Open Source word processors and other utilities.
No, no ,NO!
The definition of a transparent copy as in the FDL (not "Yet Another Definition of Transparent Copy"):
A "Transparent" copy of the Document means a machine-readable copy, represented in a format whose specification is available to the general public, whose contents can be viewed and edited directly and straightforwardly with generic text editors or (for images composed of pixels) generic paint programs or (for drawings) some widely available drawing editor, and that is suitable for input to text formatters or for automatic translation to a variety of formats suitable for input to text formatters. A copy made in an otherwise Transparent file format whose markup has been designed to thwart or discourage subsequent modification by readers is not Transparent. A copy that is not "Transparent" is called "Opaque".
I do not now if ".doc" specification is available, I doubt it is fully.
IIRC .doc specification is available somewhere. There are obviously some minor incompatibilities between standard and Microsoft implementation, but that's true for every other format.
But I am sure it connot be edited directly and straightforwardly with generic text editors (as GNU Emacs, Vi or... say Notepad).
Generic text editors doesn't mean *plain text* editors. That would be silly - 99% of population uses WYSYWIG for such things.
You can edit it in OpenOffice, AbiWord, KWord and ton of other *formatted text* editors.
Word format is THE archetype of what is an opaque one, specificly designed to trap users' data.
It's not. It was designed with single program in mind but there's nothing in it that prevents other people from implementing the standard.