From: Tomas Hlavaty <tom@logand.com>
To: Arthur Miller <arthur.miller@live.com>
Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Emacs as a word processor (ways to convert Word/RTF proprietary files)
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 2020 15:44:55 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <87wnx6x7vc.fsf@logand.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <AM0PR06MB65779D34666D4AB93FD0D91196DC0@AM0PR06MB6577.eurprd06.prod.outlook.com>
On Fri 25 Dec 2020 at 14:19, Arthur Miller <arthur.miller@live.com> wrote:
> The problem with documents in MS office is not text extraction; it is
> just xml nowadays anyway, the problem is countless VBA scripts that
> business and organisations run in Excell/Access/Word that just can't
> be translate to Libre. Libre has VB, but the underlaying objects are
> not there and lots of tools out there that people use can't be just
> automatically translated.
>
> I have worked in big organisation and did lots of automation for MS
> office and databases.
So what? I do not understand what are you trying to say.
I tried to get the point across that it is not all or nothing problem.
There are use-cases which bring lots of value and are achievable with
reasonable effort.
>> Dealing with office formats is not a pleasant experience so I am
>> skeptical that volunteers will devote so much time to the use-cases
>> with the highest complexity.
>
> What is not so pleasant? New formats (marked with x) at the end are
> all xml, so it is just dealing with xml, sinilar to odt. I see nothing
> hard there and it is not that I defend Microsoft, I just don't see
> what you are talking about. That is part that alternatives you mention
> do.
Just because something is a zip file with some xml files inside does not
make it "not hard", "just dealing with xml". It is complex to do
non-trivial stuff. If you do not see what I am talking about, try to
implement something non-trivial (for example merge many docx documents
into one). You'll understand why it is not a pleasant experience and
why I do not think anybody will do that in their free time.
>> there could be.
>
> You are correct about one thing: there could be free alternative.
> All that will probably change in next 20 ~ 30 years, but we are not
> there yet.
It is not clear to me about which use-case are you talking in this
prediction.
1) There are use-cases, for which there are solutions now, as I already
shown.
2) There are use-cases, for which solutions could be implemented with
reasonable effort.
3) There are use-cases, which will very likely never have an
alternative.
For 1) I did my best.
For 2) we'll see what I will do;-)
For 3) I wish you good luck!
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2020-12-25 14:44 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 93+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2020-12-22 18:22 Emacs as a word processor Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-12-22 18:39 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-12-22 19:28 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-12-22 19:37 ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-12-22 19:46 ` Stefan Monnier
2020-12-22 20:00 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-12-22 19:32 ` Jean Louis
2020-12-22 19:41 ` Arthur Miller
2020-12-22 19:51 ` Jean Louis
2020-12-22 19:57 ` Arthur Miller
2020-12-22 20:07 ` Qiantan Hong
2020-12-22 20:43 ` Arthur Miller
2020-12-22 20:56 ` Gregory Heytings via Emacs development discussions.
2020-12-24 5:49 ` Richard Stallman
2020-12-24 20:57 ` chad
2020-12-25 4:37 ` Richard Stallman
2020-12-25 7:14 ` Emacs as a word processor (ways to convert Word/RTF proprietary files) Jean Louis
2020-12-25 8:15 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-12-25 9:58 ` Jean Louis
2020-12-25 12:08 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-12-25 13:11 ` Jean Louis
2020-12-25 13:39 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-12-27 21:28 ` Tomas Hlavaty
2020-12-28 7:26 ` Jean Louis
2020-12-28 17:11 ` Drew Adams
2020-12-28 22:19 ` Tomas Hlavaty
2020-12-29 8:31 ` Jean Louis
2020-12-29 13:27 ` Tomas Hlavaty
2020-12-28 13:47 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-12-28 19:12 ` Tomas Hlavaty
2020-12-25 13:23 ` Arthur Miller
2020-12-27 9:43 ` Jean Louis
2020-12-25 10:30 ` Yuri Khan
2020-12-26 10:23 ` Richard Stallman
2020-12-26 10:32 ` Sv: " arthur miller
2020-12-26 11:03 ` Yuri Khan
2020-12-26 11:53 ` Tomas Hlavaty
2020-12-26 12:19 ` Jean Louis
2020-12-27 5:38 ` Richard Stallman
2020-12-25 10:59 ` Tomas Hlavaty
2020-12-25 13:19 ` Arthur Miller
2020-12-25 14:44 ` Tomas Hlavaty [this message]
2020-12-25 19:41 ` Sv: " arthur miller
2020-12-25 21:08 ` Stefan Monnier
2020-12-26 10:13 ` Sv: " arthur miller
2020-12-27 21:08 ` Tomas Hlavaty
2020-12-25 13:49 ` Jean Louis
2020-12-25 15:02 ` Tomas Hlavaty
2020-12-26 6:34 ` Jean Louis
2020-12-28 11:44 ` Eric S Fraga
2020-12-28 12:22 ` Tomas Hlavaty
2020-12-28 12:37 ` Eric S Fraga
2020-12-28 16:25 ` Tomas Hlavaty
2020-12-29 10:10 ` Eric S Fraga
2020-12-28 13:37 ` [pandoc] (was: Emacs as a word processor (ways to convert Word/RTF proprietary files)) Uwe Brauer
2020-12-28 14:56 ` Stefan Kangas
2020-12-28 15:02 ` [pandoc] Uwe Brauer
2020-12-28 16:33 ` [pandoc] (was: Emacs as a word processor (ways to convert Word/RTF proprietary files)) Tomas Hlavaty
2020-12-28 17:07 ` [pandoc] Uwe Brauer
2020-12-28 18:11 ` [pandoc] Tomas Hlavaty
[not found] ` <X+Xv2f/sQzaWg/B0@protected.rcdrun.com>
2020-12-25 15:07 ` Emacs as a word processor (ways to convert Word/RTF proprietary files) Tomas Hlavaty
2020-12-26 6:35 ` Jean Louis
2020-12-27 21:14 ` Tomas Hlavaty
2020-12-28 1:39 ` Amin Bandali
2020-12-28 16:38 ` Tomas Hlavaty
2020-12-26 10:23 ` Richard Stallman
2020-12-26 10:45 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-12-27 5:38 ` Richard Stallman
2020-12-26 16:12 ` Stefan Monnier
2020-12-27 5:40 ` Richard Stallman
2020-12-28 13:41 ` Uwe Brauer
2020-12-23 4:53 ` Emacs as a word processor David Masterson
2020-12-23 5:26 ` Christopher Dimech
2020-12-23 7:52 ` Jean Louis
2020-12-23 8:02 ` Jean Louis
2020-12-23 9:53 ` Arthur Miller
2020-12-23 1:48 ` yarnton--- via Emacs development discussions.
2020-12-23 2:29 ` Christopher Dimech
2020-12-23 2:53 ` Stefan Kangas
2020-12-23 7:25 ` Ihor Radchenko
2020-12-23 17:58 ` yarnton--- via Emacs development discussions.
2020-12-23 18:06 ` Stefan Monnier
2020-12-24 3:09 ` Ihor Radchenko
2020-12-25 4:31 ` Richard Stallman
2020-12-25 5:17 ` Ihor Radchenko
2020-12-25 5:18 ` Ihor Radchenko
2020-12-26 10:28 ` Richard Stallman
2020-12-26 11:30 ` Ihor Radchenko
2020-12-23 17:09 ` Kévin Le Gouguec
2020-12-24 5:47 ` Richard Stallman
2020-12-23 10:18 ` Arthur Miller
2020-12-23 4:21 ` Richard Stallman
2020-12-23 4:38 ` Christopher Dimech
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