From E.W.Kruyt@lumc.nl Tue Jun 6 09:13:57 2000 Received: from mail.medfac.leidenuniv.nl (water.medfac.leidenuniv.nl [132.229.167.13]) by dkuug.dk (8.9.2/8.9.2) with ESMTP id JAA11987 for ; Tue, 6 Jun 2000 09:13:53 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from E.W.Kruyt@lumc.nl) Received: by mail.medfac.leidenuniv.nl with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) id ; Tue, 6 Jun 2000 09:13:53 +0200 Message-ID: <27E647E5629ED211BF78009027289C630181316E@mail.medfac.leidenuniv.nl> From: "Kruyt, E. W." To: "'Craig T. Dedo'" Cc: "'SC22WG5@dkuug.dk'" Subject: RE: (SC22WG5.1832) Nara - use of WORD, WG5 N1384 Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 09:13:43 +0200 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Craig, The PDF format is specifically meant for documents which are not to be changed. That is why I mentioned that in my comment. That is great if you want that. I distribute manuals in PDF format because I dont't want that someone changes them (copyright, etc..). If you want that others can go on with the document you need something else, like XML. Erik -----Original Message----- From: Craig T. Dedo [mailto:Craig_Dedo@execpc.com] Sent: dinsdag 6 juni 2000 5:46 To: John Reid Cc: SC22WG5@dkuug.dk Subject: (SC22WG5.1832) Nara - use of WORD, WG5 N1384 Dear John: John Reid wrote: > Marisa, > > Here is my proposal for the SC22 meeting in Nara. > > Best wishes, > > John Reid. > > ........................................................... > > ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5 N1384 > > Proposal: That SC22 cease to use Word for document distribution > > John Reid, WG5 Convenor > > Word is not a standard and is unsafe (it provides a mechanism for > the import of viruses). It is not readily available to those running > systems other than Microsoft's. Marisa Peacock reports that she can > easily circulate documents in HTML or PDF instead. > > ......................... > > APPENDIX > > I asked WG5 for comments on this paper. Here is summary of the replies: > OTHER COMMENTS > 4. Craig Dedo: > The major disadvantage of formats such as PostScript or PDF is that they > are essentially read-only formats. It is very difficult or impossible to > import them into WordPerfect or anything similar so that you have an editable > document. In contrast, it is a fairly simple and straightforward matter to > import documents in MS Word, RTF, or other word processing document formats > into the word processor of your choice. > Adobe's quoted price for the full Acrobat is $250. This is more than > enough money to buy a complete office suite from any of the major vendors as a > competitive upgrade. > Yes, there are serious problems with Word macro viruses. However, it is > fairly simple and straightforward to protect yourself against them. And, if > you use a word processor other than MS Word, the Word viruses almost always > don't translate into the target document format. I am not opposed to the use of MS Word. However, I would prefer it to PDF. I checked Adobe's site and it says nothing about whether the full Acrobat 4.0 can export to any format. From their silence, I guess that the answer is, "No". I did check Acrobat plug-ins. There are some commercial products that do various kinds of data extraction but they are quite expensive, around $200 or so. It looks like my original opinion that PDF is essentially a read-only format still stands. We really need the ability to edit and comment on documents as well as the ability to read and print them. Does anyone know of any free or low-cost tools that can convert PDF files to popular document formats and preserve most or all of the formatting? IMHO, the most important criterion for a document distribution format is that it is faily easily and inexpensively convertible from the SC22 "standard" format into the user's preferred word processor document format. From the way things look right now, MS Word has that capability, but PDF does not. Most of the other popular word processors also have this capability. Does anyone have a better idea than what SC22 is proposing? -- ---------- Sincerely, Craig T. Dedo Internet: Craig_Dedo@execpc.com Elmbrook Computer Services, Inc. Voice Phone: (262) 783-5869 17130 W. Burleigh Place Fax Phone: (262) 783-5928 Brookfield, WI 53005-2759 USA "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin (1759)