NAME

word2x - convert word 6 documents to another format

SYNOPSIS

word2x [-Vhvq] [-w width] [-f format] [-d date-style] files...

DESCRIPTION

word2x is a program that attempts to produce a component, if not perfect rendition of a word 6 document. It guesses rather a lot from context and can make mistakes. Pictures are not supported and will not appear. There is very limited maths support in LaTeX mode, mainly due to lack of samples of mathematics. (I probably should have done this using TeX catcode and macro magic, instead of writing special code).

Input files must be seekable and therefore stdin is not allowed. The files argument is of the form input file, output file, input file, output file etc. - may be used for stdout in the output file. If the output file is not sepcified a named is generated by adding on an appropiate suffix in place of .DOC (or .doc). Both .DOC and .doc are added automatically if the file name specified can not be found.

As a special exception to the above any file ending on .doc or .DOC is assumed to be an input file. This allows one to type word2x -f latex *.DOC, for example.

OPTIONS

-V, --version: print version on stderr and exit.
-h, --help: show synopsis, output and date formats supported.
-v, --verbose: be (moderately) verbose
-q, --quiet: supress non-error messages (this is the default).
-w, --width: set the maximum width of a line in the output
-d, --dates: set the date format. Currently the formats supported are uk, british, us. uk dates are 22nd April, 1997, for example and US style dates April 22nd, 1997. british is a synonym for uk. The default is uk.
-f, --format: Set the output format. Currently text and latex are supported. The LaTeX output requires the AMS LaTeX package and LaTeX 2e. It should be reasonably easy to add another format, however some formats do a large amount of context guesswork, for example the LaTeX format (esp. in the paragraph handling code). text is the default.

BUGS

One argument does not produce output on stdout

The reader sometimes generates error messages when it is confused.

The equation support is limited to only fractions at present.

The program appears to understand a lot more than it really does.

Pictures are silently disguared.

Fast save files are not supported.

The conversion is not perfect and needs manual cleaning up.

Non-word files silently produce empty output in most cases.

Equations are not supported in text output.

If the cues the program recognised LaTeX mode does little more than produce LaTeX format tables and plain text output.

AUTHOR

word2x is (C) Duncan Simpson 1997 and may be distributed under the GPL version 2, or any later version at your option. I would appreciate patches and information emailed to dps@io.stargate.co.uk