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List:       koffice
Subject:    M$ Word filter? And more standard formats
From:       "Schmidt, Frank-Andreas" <Frank-Andreas.Schmidt () sig ! siemens ! de>
Date:       1999-11-26 8:12:46
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> A very well put reply. This has always been a traditional problem, that
> of having no standard. Come to think of it , even KDE's image viewer \
> doesnot read gimp's .xcf file. So kword's file format will be another one \
> among many. While kword will read and write to a few other file formats , \
> this still doesnt solve the problem.
> 
I agree. And what is more: Does KSpread have a standardized format on \
saving data ? And what about KPresenter ?

I mean itīs time to think about a new way to store data.
As "dep" mentioned 500k docs are easy to store and forward with the means \
of today.

So why not take XML into account ?
In my opinion Microsoft is slowly moving toward this format to store data. \
The last version of their PowerPoint converts presentations automatically \
into html-files and gifs. Next step would be to have -sort of- XML, see \
Office2000.

So what about the following:
Choose XML.
Letīs handle text and graphics separately. Means that text has links to \
graphics and so on. At save time grab all the files of the document and \
sent them through the tar/gz or bz2 algorithm to store all data into one \
file. At load time process vice versa.
For the user it will be easy to handle the document:
Itīs size is small, so he can sent it via mail.
One can untar the doc-file and use the files separetly.
The docs can easily put to the web
Data can be processed with other programs, too. 
Choose XML because it will be a standard to the industry in less than 3 ys.

Well, there have to be import/export filters, too. But these are mainly to \
support users that want to switch their docs to the new format. They will \
take into account that the import fails or is incomplete in some cases, but \
they will use the programs native format for the future because it has \
advantages. 

Seeing forward to the answers of the community,

	Frank


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