Nisus .doc won't open in Palm DocsToGo

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mowog
Posts: 5
Joined: 2006-06-28 06:22:30
Location: Indianapolis IN
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Nisus .doc won't open in Palm DocsToGo

Post by mowog »

This evening I created some .doc files in Nisus then beamed them to my Palm TX using Drag'n'Tooth. DocumentsToGo 8.003 is installed and can open native .doc files, but it choked and said the Nisus-created files were unreadable.

I then opened the Nisus-created files in NeoOffice, saved them on top of themselves, and beamed them to the Palm again. This time DocsToGo opened them without a hitch.

No big deal, but is this a Nisus problem, a DocsToGo problem, or both? Just wondering.
dshan
Posts: 334
Joined: 2003-11-21 19:25:28
Location: Sydney, Australia

Post by dshan »

This is because NWX doesn't create regular Word binary files when you select MS Word format with Save As... It creates rtf files with a .doc suffix. This is perfectly legal in MS Word (and every Word-compatible app I've ever used) as it knows all about rtf of course and quite happily opens them with no complaint. DocumentsToGo however apparently doesn't like such disguised rtf files, it's expecting real binary Word data and nothing else will do. Bummer.
mowog
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Joined: 2006-06-28 06:22:30
Location: Indianapolis IN
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Bummer indeed.

Post by mowog »

But thanks for your golden reply! That explains everything perfectly.
cstross
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Joined: 2005-01-11 14:24:48
Location: Edinburgh, Scotland
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Post by cstross »

Hint: you can convert your NWE files into Word Doc files that Documents to Go will eat, using the command line program textutil.

To convert a file called foo.rtf to a file called foo.doc that Docs to Go will read, open terminal, cd to the directory foo.rtf lives in, and type:

textutil -convert doc foo.rtf

(Note: requires OS/X 10.4 or higher.)

You may want to convert a Perl macro to do this, and hang it off your macro menu. (Alternatively, use Missing Sync to set up a folder to Sync with your Palm. Then enable Folder Actions, and use AppleScript to automatically run textutil over any RTF file you drop into the sync folder, and do the same in reverse :)
mowog
Posts: 5
Joined: 2006-06-28 06:22:30
Location: Indianapolis IN
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And more thanks!

Post by mowog »

I will keep your advice in mind and try to write up a macro to do just such a conversion. Thank you very muuch!
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