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List:       koffice
Subject:    Re: file formats [Re: Question about your KPresenter's review]
From:       Nicolas Goutte <nicog () snafu ! de>
Date:       2002-03-13 21:07:17
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On Wednesday 13 March 2002 05:52, Catherine Olanich Raymond wrote:
> On Monday 11 March 2002 05:50 am, Rob Landley wrote:
> > On Sunday 10 March 2002 05:18 pm, Catherine Olanich Raymond wrote:
> > > > mp3 offers about 1:10 savings in size (comparing to Audio CD),
> > > > Koffice - about 1:6, which is quite comparable (may be, can be
> > > > imprroved further)
> >
> > If people were even slightly bothered by the size of their word
> > processing documents, they wouldn't be saving .doc files.  (Word has RTF
> > and such built in, you know.)
>
> Most users don't even think about the size of the Word files unless they
> have to load them onto a floppy, which (as you point out) most of us don't.
>  And no, I didn't know Word has RTF built in.  If that's the case, why is
> it so hard to get non MS software to read/edit it?

As I am not sure if you have understood, the MS Word native 
file format does *not* contain RTF. MS Word can just read and 
write any of both formats.

As for the Rich Text Format (RTF), it was invented by Microsoft.

It was need, as (U.S.) American networks of that time could not transfer 
binary files. However, there was a demand in the U.S.A. to be able to 
transfer MS Word files.

RTF became also handy at the time of Winword 1.x to exchange files between 
localized version of Winword, as for example a French *.doc file could not 
been read by a German Winword.

As for its complexity, well, RTF is not a simple format. Additionally, it has 
at least five sub-versions (I am leaving out the Asian versions here.)

You can also compare with why KOffice has no filter to/from OpenOffice. When 
a format is complex, you need time (and (wo)manpower) to write a filter.

>
(...)

Have a nice day/evening/night!
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