.doc files in emacs

.doc files in emacs

[Gary Wessle]

Hi
I received a .dco file today and googled to find if I can open it in
emacs.
could not find an answer so I am asking here.
can a microsoft .doc file be viewed/edited/converted/whatever by
emacs?
if not, how do you people handle this file?

thanks

Re: .doc files in emacs

[Leo]

* Gary Wessle (2006-12-16 07:31 +1100) said:
  ^^^^^^^^^^^
> could not find an answer so I am asking here.
> can a microsoft .doc file be viewed/edited/converted/whatever by
> emacs?

There are a bunch of apps to extract the text part of .doc files:

  catdoc => http://directory.fsf.org/catdoc.html
  antiword => http://www.winfield.demon.nl/

-- 
Leo <sdl.web AT gmail.com>                         (GPG Key: 9283AA3F)

Re: .doc files in emacs

[Tim X]

Gary Wessle <phddas@yahoo.com> writes:

> Hi
> I received a .dco file today and googled to find if I can open it in
> emacs.
> could not find an answer so I am asking here.
> can a microsoft .doc file be viewed/edited/converted/whatever by
> emacs?
> if not, how do you people handle this file?
>

I posted a utility called txutils.el to g.e.sources a couple of weeks
back. This utility converts various file formats to text or html using
external utilities such as wv. The utility "advises" the view-file
function so that conversion is done automatically when you select a
file to view with a known extension. Currently, it will convert *.doc,
*.ppt, *.xls, *.ps and *.pdf. The utility has a "customize"
configuration that makes it quite easy to extend conversion for other
types. 

Let me know i you want a copy. However, note that it is pretty much my
first elisp utility I've let out into the wild - I think the elisp is
OK, but not great and probably could be greatly improved by a more
experienced elisper. 

-- 
tcross (at) une dot edu dot au

Re: .doc files in emacs

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null>
> Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 12:02:28 +1100
> 
> Let me know i you want a copy. However, note that it is pretty much my
> first elisp utility I've let out into the wild - I think the elisp is
> OK, but not great and probably could be greatly improved by a more
> experienced elisper. 

Well, one advice I can give, based on brief reading of the code, is to
keep in txutils-convert-alist only the program names, without the
leading directories (e.g., "pdftotext" instead of "/usr/bin/pdftotext"),
and use executable-find to find the program.

This way, you will DTRT by default for more users on more platforms,
and the only users that will need to customize txutils-convert-alist
are those who install the utilities outside of their PATH.

Re: .doc files in emacs

[Tim X]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> Subject: Re: .doc files in emacs
>
>> From: Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null>
>> Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 12:02:28 +1100
>> 
>> Let me know i you want a copy. However, note that it is pretty much my
>> first elisp utility I've let out into the wild - I think the elisp is
>> OK, but not great and probably could be greatly improved by a more
>> experienced elisper. 
>
> Well, one advice I can give, based on brief reading of the code, is to
> keep in txutils-convert-alist only the program names, without the
> leading directories (e.g., "pdftotext" instead of "/usr/bin/pdftotext"),
> and use executable-find to find the program.
>
> This way, you will DTRT by default for more users on more platforms,
> and the only users that will need to customize txutils-convert-alist
> are those who install the utilities outside of their PATH.
>

Thanks Eli. I wasn't aware of executable-find. I will check it out.

Tim

-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au

Re: .doc files in emacs

[Joe Fineman]

Gary Wessle <phddas@yahoo.com> writes:

> can a microsoft .doc file be viewed/edited/converted/whatever by
> emacs?  if not, how do you people handle this file?

As others on this thread have pointed out, there are various utilities
that will convert a .doc file to a text file.  However, Word itself
will do that for you (File -> Save as -> Text).  Such a file can of
course be edited in Emacs, and that is useful as far as it goes.

But AFAIK there is no way to edit a .doc file in Emacs in such a way
that it remains a .doc file usable in Word.  I have tried it, and
often it has seemed to work for minor changes, but I gave up after
other users found that it corrupted the file in obscure ways.  I dare
say that Microsoft would be horrified at the thought, but such a
routine would improve my quality of life, as I am often called on to
edit .doc files, and do not enjoy doing so in Word.

Is a Word-to-TeX conversion program conceivable?
-- 
---  Joe Fineman    joe_f@verizon.net

||:  Happiness is no more than good health and a bad memory.  :||

Re: .doc files in emacs

[Lennart Borgman]

Joe Fineman wrote:
> Gary Wessle <phddas@yahoo.com> writes:
>
>   
>> can a microsoft .doc file be viewed/edited/converted/whatever by
>> emacs?  if not, how do you people handle this file?
>>     
>
> As others on this thread have pointed out, there are various utilities
> that will convert a .doc file to a text file.  However, Word itself
> will do that for you (File -> Save as -> Text).  Such a file can of
> course be edited in Emacs, and that is useful as far as it goes.
>
> But AFAIK there is no way to edit a .doc file in Emacs in such a way
> that it remains a .doc file usable in Word.  I have tried it, and
> often it has seemed to work for minor changes, but I gave up after
> other users found that it corrupted the file in obscure ways.  I dare
> say that Microsoft would be horrified at the thought, but such a
> routine would improve my quality of life, as I am often called on to
> edit .doc files, and do not enjoy doing so in Word.
>
> Is a Word-to-TeX conversion program conceivable?
>   

Why not use OpenOffice.org? It can convert the .doc file to its xml 
format if I understand things correctly.