🚀 go-pugleaf

In <5gde27$gdj@news.interlog.com>, bodo@interlog.com (Byron Bodo) writes:
>It's not that people wanted word, but that clients insist that docs,
>spreadsheets, data bases, etc be prepared in standard formats.  Having
>isolated stand alone formats or even an integrated os2 suite that
>can't generate output in readily convertible formats is not & has never 
>been an option.

There ARE standard formats beside MS Word and RTF, which do not change with
every version of the product. Reality is: Nobody knows them, nobody wants them,
everybody is happy to buy expensive updates each and every year just because 
everybody else is doing that too.

If a customer needs perfectly formatted documents, he gets postscript files. If
he need structured documents (e.g. for technical documentation), he gets SGML.
For documentation with hyperlinks and some formatting, he gets HTML (but 
standard based, not Microsoft or Netscape HTML). 

Take a look how long postscript exists and how much wordprocessors and 
versions of them went to garbage during this time. Obviously word processor
"standards" are not the way to exchange documents! 

One last argument: Everybody knows what can happen to word processor 
documents if they are "ported" to another printer with different fonts and
paper margins. Are we expected to buy a "standard" word processor (Microsoft
Word) and a standard printer (which?) just to keep anybody happy with
documents, that can't be archived in a reasonably manner? That's garbage.

Regarding databases and spreadsheets: Which database and which spreadsheet
is not able to import and export data based on ASCII encoding with field 
separators? I developed some solutions with this old "standard" and even the
newest MS Office app could import the data and my customers where happy.

Christian.

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